Rubio plugs Orbán’s bid for one more time period after April elections throughout a go to to Budapest – Boston Information, Climate, Sports activities

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday enthusiastically endorsed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán ‘s bid to serve a fifth straight time period after upcoming elections in April, emphasizing throughout a go to to Budapest the sturdy private relationship between the nationalist chief and U.S. President Donald Trump.

Orbán, who has led Hungary since 2010, is one in every of Trump’s most vocal supporters within the European Union, and has actively curried the U.S. president’s favor main as much as the April 12 vote through which he’ll face the hardest problem of his final 16 years in energy.

Rubio was within the Hungarian capital for conferences with Orbán and his authorities the place he signed an settlement on U.S.-Hungarian civilian nuclear cooperation that features the doable buy of compact nuclear reactors — referred to as small modular reactors or SMRs — in addition to U.S.-supplied nuclear gasoline and spent gasoline storage expertise.

At a information convention in Budapest, Rubio stated U.S.-Hungary relations — which each he and Orbán described as experiencing a “golden age” underneath Trump — transcend mere diplomatic cooperation.

“I’m going to be very blunt with you,” Rubio stated. “The prime minister and the president have a really, very shut private relationship and dealing relationship, and I feel it has been useful to our two international locations.”

“That person-to-person connection that you simply’ve established with the president has made all of the distinction on the earth in constructing this relationship,” Rubio continued, addressing Orbán. “President Trump is deeply dedicated to your success as a result of your success is our success.”

Rubio on pleasant territory in Central Europe

Rubio’s cease in Hungary adopted a go to to Slovakia on Sunday after he beforehand attended the Munich Safety Convention in Germany.

Led by euroskeptic populists who oppose help for Ukraine and vocally again Trump, Slovakia and Hungary are each pleasant territory for Rubio in his push to shore up power agreements with each Central European international locations.

Broadly thought-about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most dependable advocate within the EU, Orbán has maintained heat relations with the Kremlin regardless of its conflict towards Ukraine whereas constructing ties with Trump and his MAGA — brief for the 2016 Trump marketing campaign slogan “Make America Nice Once more” — motion.

Orbán has remained firmly dedicated to buying Russian power regardless of efforts by the EU to wean off such provides, and obtained an exemption from U.S. sanctions on Russian power after a November assembly within the White Home with Trump.

Rubio wouldn’t specify on Monday how lengthy that exemption would final because the EU plans to part out Russian fossil fuels fully by the top of 2027.

Apparently trusting that his political and private affinity with Trump might pay even higher dividends, Orbán and his authorities have sought to woo the U.S. chief to Hungary earlier than the pivotal April elections — hoping such a high-profile go to and endorsement would push Orbán, who’s trailing in most polls, over the end line.

On Monday, Orbán informed Rubio that his authorities is able to host any future trilateral peace summit between america, Russia and Ukraine, and that Trump has an “open invitation” to Budapest.

He additionally claimed that Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, have been searching for to intervene in Hungary’s upcoming elections by criticizing Orbán’s opposition to offering weapons or monetary assist to Kyiv and threats to dam Ukraine’s eventual membership within the EU.

Make Europe Nice Once more

Many in MAGA and the broader conservative world view Hungary as a shining instance of profitable conservative nationalism, regardless of the erosion of its democratic establishments and its standing as one of many EU’s poorest international locations.

Orbán has riffed on Trump’s common slogan and declared that he and his motion search to “Make Europe Nice Once more.”

In flip, Trump has praised Orbán’s agency opposition to immigration, exemplified by a fence his authorities erected on Hungary’s southern border in 2015 as a whole lot of 1000’s of refugees fled Syria and different international locations within the Center East and Africa.

Different U.S. conservatives admire Orbán’s hostility to LGBTQ+ rights. His authorities final yr banned the favored Budapest Pleasure celebration and allowed facial recognition expertise for use to determine anybody collaborating regardless of the ban. It has additionally successfully banned same-sex adoption and same-sex marriage, and disallowed transgender people from altering their intercourse in official paperwork.

Budapest has hosted a number of annual iterations of the Conservative Political Motion Convention, or CPAC, and one other was unexpectedly rescheduled this yr to fall in March, simply earlier than Hungary’s elections.