Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary has shared a series of clips from an interview he recently gave to local journalist András Hont. One of the clips pertains to President Trump’s infamous ‘trade war’ with other nations, per which he significantly raised tariffs on almost all other nations of the world. He then paused them for 90 days and reduced them to a baseline 10-per-cent tariff on 9 April, with the exception of China.
On this pressing matter, PM Orbán had this to say:
‘As for the tariff war, it is a thing that we know the beginning, and, I believe, the end of. Whatever happens in between is not interesting. With each country that he has a trade deficit with, he [President Trump] is going to renegotiate the tariff structure, in a way that makes it better for the United States than its current position. This is going to be the end of it.
As for us specifically, we are negotiating with the Americans as well, about certain economic issues that give us an advantage. The tariffs will be a disadvantage, but we are negotiating certain economic issues that can counterbalance that’.
When asked when he believes the discussion will end in actual trade deals, PM Orbán quite confidently answered, ‘Half a year’.
In the full-length interview, published on the ÖT YouTube channel on Thursday, 17 April, the Hungarian Head of Government also mentioned the case of Antal Rogán, a high-ranking official in his government who was put on a sanctions list in the last weeks of the Biden administration, and has recently been removed from the list by the new Trump admin. PM Orbán described the move as ‘a last kick’ by the outgoing Biden admin, done ‘as revenge’ for the Hungarian government not complying with its ‘demands’. He then went on to describe US Vice President JD Vance as ‘the next leader of the United States’.
Some of the clips shared on the Prime Minister’s social media are about the opposition TISZA Party, led by Péter Magyar—understandably so, given that Hungary is holding its quadrennial parliamentary election in about a year.
The Prime Minister alleged that the TISZA Party’s major rallies have been financed by individuals from abroad, such as ‘leftist oligarchs and the European Union’. He even went as far as saying that ‘I have no doubt that the TISZA Party is not a Hungarian party, it is a Brussels party’. He added that ‘this is a great challenge to our sovereignty protection efforts’.
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