No one who has paid attention to the statements of Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán over the last two weeks should be surprised that he left NATO’s gathering in Washington yesterday and traveled down to Mar-a-Lago, Florida, to meet with former President Donald Trump. Orbán has been explicit about breaking up the frozen diplomatic situation and about the need to engage, besides Ukraine and Russia, three key players: China, the U.S. and the EU to kickstart the process of ending the conflict. He has already reported back to the EU on his first three meetings with Kyiv, Moscow and Beijing—as he considers Hungary’s role in the presidency of the Counsilium of the EU to bring to the attention of the EU the key matters threatening the EU, for them to act upon.
Last night, he posted on X about his session with Trump as “peace mission 5.0.… We discussed ways to make peace. The good news of the day: he’s going to solve it!” (Apparently, Orbán’s count is 1.0 Kyiv, 2.0 Moscow, 3.0 Beijing and 4.0 Washington’s NATO meeting.) Orbán’s spokesman described the meeting “as the next stop of his peace mission.… The discussion was about the possibilities of peace.” Trump posted on the Truth Social network: “Thank you Viktor. There must be PEACE, and quickly. Too many people have died in a war that should never have started!”
The only real controversy might be that Orbán judged that Trump represented the U.S. more realistically than President Biden. Apparently, Biden did not invite Orbán to the White House, neither this visit nor during Orbán’s March meeting at Mar-a-Lago; and apparently Orbán has not asked for a White House meeting either time. In between, Orbán’s two meetings with Trump, he received Donald Trump, Jr., in Budapest on June 13, two days before Zelenskyy’s “Peace Summit” in Switzerland. (Trump’s son on June 12 told a Budapest event that any peace negotiations had to include Russia.)