The return of Donald Trump to the White House would herald a “peaceful future,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said. Szijjarto and Prime Minister Viktor Orban both believe that Trump's victory in the 2024 US presidential elections would be key to resolving the conflict in Ukraine.
“If President Trump had won the last presidential election here in the US, this war would not have broken out,” Szijjarto told Newsmax, an American conservative broadcaster, on Tuesday.
“During the term of President Trump, there were no Russian attacks against anyone,” Szijjarto explained, adding that Hungary looks “at his possible return to the White House as a hope for a peaceful future.”
While mainstream Republicans have lined up to support US President Joe Biden’s policy of indefinite military aid to Ukraine, Trump and a small number of his supporters in Congress have accused Biden of instigating a global war by continuing to rule out peace talks while progressively heavier weapons keep flowing to Kiev.
Trump maintains that the conflict never would have started if he were president, and that he could “have that war settled in one day” if elected in 2024.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has also claimed that the conflict would not be happening if Trump were still in power. “I’m sure if President Trump were president today there’d be no war afflicting Europe and Ukraine,” Orban said in Budapest last month. “Come back, Mr. President, make America great again and bring us peace.”
Orban has made no secret of his support for Trump. On the eve of Trump’s appearance before a New York court to face campaign finance charges last month, Orban took to Twitter to urge the embattled Republican to “keep on fighting,” adding “we are with you.” Years earlier, the Hungarian premier was the first foreign leader to endorse Trump’s successful 2016 campaign, and backed Trump’s re-election bid in 2020.
Szijjarto struck a similar tone on Tuesday. With Trump arraigned in Florida and charged with mishandling classified documents that afternoon, Szijjarto declared that Hungarians were “cross[ing] our fingers for him.”
“Under his leadership we had the best political relationship between the US and Hungary,” he told Newsmax. “He is a true friend, and as a true friend he can count on us in any kind of situation.”