Hungary's Orban meets Trump after NATO summit

FLORIDA

This handout from the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) account of Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban @PM_ViktorOrban posted on July 11, 2024 shows Orban (L) posing with former U.S. president Donald Trump at Trump's estate in Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida

Hungary's nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban jetted off to Florida on Thursday to meet with former U.S. president Donald Trump after the end of the NATO summit in Washington.

The sit-down at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate is likely to further upset Budapest's allies after Orban drew widespread ire from European counterparts for meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin last week.

Right-wing Orban, whose country took over the rotating presidency of the European Union this month, has been a vocal supporter of Trump, and last met the 2024 Republican presidential hopeful in March.

"We discussed ways to make peace," Orban said in a post on social media Thursday evening with a picture of the two leaders meeting. "The good news of the day: he's going to solve it!"

The post did not elaborate further.

Orban sparked uproar in the EU by jetting to Moscow to hold talks with Putin on what the Hungarian leader described as a "peace mission" over the war in Ukraine.

His Russia visit followed a trip to Kiev for talks with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The 27-nation EU bloc has condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine and imposed unprecedented sanctions on Moscow.

"Viktor Orban has no mandate from the alliance, nor from the European Union, to conduct any form of negotiations," Finnish President Alexander Stubb said at the NATO summit.

"He can do it on his own behalf. But I fundamentally disagree about doing that. I simply do not see the purpose."

Speaking to reporters Thursday, U.S. President Joe Biden, set to face Trump in November, said that "I have no good reason to talk to Putin right now — there's not much that he is prepared to do in terms of accommodating any change in his behavior."

Orban, like Trump, has expressed skepticism about the role NATO countries are playing in support of Ukraine, and refuses to send Kiev weapons saying it would fuel the conflict.

His meeting with Trump, who has been critical of the central role played by the United States in NATO, came after Biden sought to rally the alliance at the Washington summit.

Biden was also seeking to reassure NATO counterparts — and U.S. voters — about his leadership and fitness for office in the wake of a disastrous performance against Trump in a televised debate last month rekindled concerns about his age.