How Russian Oil Could Undo the Trump-Orbán Bromance

On Friday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán makes his first visit to the White House in President Donald Trump’s second term. Trump has borrowed liberally (or perhaps more accurately, illiberally) from Orbán’s playbook for autocratic capture, and now Orbán is seeking favors in return. Trump gave Orbán a gift in advance of his visit. On Wednesday, the U.S. axed the recently reinstated Radio Free Europe (RFE) Hungarian language service designed to provide accurate information in Orbán’s tightly controlled media landscape. The loss of RFE coincided with the announcement that Orbán’s allies had just bought the largest circulation Hungarian newspaper, further consolidating Orbán’s media control. But Orbán is coming to Washington for something bigger. As Trump’s policy on the Russia-Ukraine war has careened wildly from supporting one side to favoring the other, Hungary’s interests have suffered collateral damage. On Oct. 22, the U.S. Treasury Department issued sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil, Russia’s two largest oil companies. The move blocked all assets of those companies that were within U.S. reach and threatened further sanctions against any foreign financial institutions that continue to do business with them. Hungary gets most of its oil from the Druzhba Pipeline that runs from Russia through Ukraine to Central and Eastern Europe, but paying Russia for that oil will now subject Hungary to U.S. sanctions. When the E.U. blocked the sale of Russian fossil fuels to E.U. member states after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Orbán used his veto over E.U. policy on Russia to leverage an exception for Hungary which has continued to this day. Now Orbán will try to make a similar deal with Trump. It’s unusual for Orbán and Trump to be on opposite sides of relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump’s fondness for Putin has long been clear, and also a subject of much puzzlement. Ditto with Orbán. Trump hastened to meet Putin upon assuming office, greeting him in person in Alaska. But after that, relations soured. Read More: How Zelensky Won Over Trump Orbán, on the other hand, still counts Putin as an ally. Orbán is the only E.U. leader who has visited Putin in Moscow since the full-scale invasion began in 2022 and he has persistently attempted to disrupt a common E.U. policy on Ukraine to Putin’s benefit. In recent years, Orbán was awarded the Russian Order of Glory and Honor from the Patriarch of Moscow and Orbán’s foreign minister received the Order of Friendship from Putin’s foreign minister. Because Orbán maintains good relations with both Trump and Putin, Budapest was recently floated as a venue for another Trump-Putin meeting to achieve peace in Ukraine. But given that peace looks, if anything, farther away now, the Budapest meeting was shelved and Orbán is instead coming to Washington. At this point, Orbán needs a lot from Trump. Orbán has a challenging election coming up in April with his first serious contender in 15 years, Péter Magyar, far ahead in the polls. Orbán has already started to shower Hungarians with the pre-election benefits to which they have become accustomed: an extra month’s pension for retirees and wage increases in the public sector. If oil prices suddenly spiked, it would be game over. Orbán has provided many of the secrets of Trump’s astonishing political success. Many of the key ideas in Project 2025, the plan that the Trump Administration has been carrying out with ruthless focus, mimic the way that Orbán consolidated power after his 2010 election. This is not surprising because the Danube Institute, an English-language think tank affiliated with the Hungarian government, was part of the Project 2025 team. Orbán weaponized the national budget, suddenly cutting off state funds to anyone who might oppose him. People retreated in fear that more would come. And more did come—mass firings of civil servants, the capture of the highest court, major cutbacks at universities, broad attacks on the civil sector. Trump has copied Orbán’s playbook. Orbán had centralized all key initiative inside his office. Similarly, Project 2025 ensured that the key policy areas—budget weaponization in the hands of Russell Vought, the immigration and militarization agenda run by Stephen Miller, and the data consolidation plan of Elon Musk and his team—were all run from inside the White House. As in Hungary, endless new laws suddenly displaced the law as everyone knew it. State funds dried up. This was how Orbán consolidated power so quickly—finalized by a massive election law rewrite that made it all the harder for Orbán to lose power again. Within a few short years, all effective sources of opposition were neutralized in Hungary. Trump is, if anything, moving faster. So now Orbán comes knocking at Trump’s door. The Orbán-admiring Hungarian press is full of stories about how Orbán will be staying at Blair House, the official guest residence of the White House, a sign of how much things have changed since Orbán was persona non grata during the Biden years. And while most American eyes will focus on whether Trump gives Orbán an exception from sanctions for living on Russian oil, Hungarians will wonder what Trump will give Orbán to allow him to win a fifth straight term in office next April.