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Prime Minister Viktor Orban is jeopardizing Hungary\u2019s position as a trusted NATO ally, the U.S. ambassador to Budapest warned on Thursday, with \u201cits close and expanding relationship with Russia,\u201d and with \u201cdangerously unhinged anti-American messaging\u201d in state-controlled media.<\/p>\n
The ambassador, David Pressman,<\/a> has for months criticized Mr. Orban for effectively siding with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia over the war in Ukraine, but his latest remarks sharply ratcheted up tensions and indicated that trust in Hungary among NATO allies had collapsed.<\/p>\n Hungary is \u201can ally that behaves unlike any other\u201d and is \u201calone on the defining issue of European security of the last quarter century, Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine,\u201d Mr. Pressman said in a speech in Budapest marking the 25th anniversary of Hungary\u2019s admission to the Western military alliance.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will have to decide how best to protect our security interests, which, as allies, should be our collective security interests,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The speech followed a visit last week by Mr. Orban, a darling of MAGA Republicans in the United States, to Donald J. Trump at the former president\u2019s home and members-only club in Florida. After their meeting, Mr. Orban claimed in an interview with Hungarian state television that Mr. Trump had outlined to him a \u201cpretty detailed plan\u201d for ending the war in Ukraine that would involve an abrupt halt to United States aid to Russia\u2019s embattled neighbor.<\/p>\n Such a plan closely parallels what Mr. Orban has been advocating for the European Union \u2014 a suspension of all financial and military support for Ukraine, and a policy of pushing the government in Kyiv into immediate peace negotiations with Moscow.<\/p>\n That, Mr. Pressman said, \u201cis not a proposal for peace; it is capitulation.\u201d<\/p>\n The ambassador detailed a catalog of complaints of the ways in which Hungary had not lived up to its obligations as an ally. These included what he said was a refusal by Mr. Orban\u2019s government to let American soldiers based in Hungary get license plates for their family cars, in violation of a defense cooperation agreement between the two countries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cOf course, this speech isn\u2019t about license plates, but this issue is indicative of the current, concerning state of Hungary\u2019s relationship with its allies,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is about a government that labels and treats the United States an adversary while making policy choices that increasingly isolate it from friends and allies.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine prompted Sweden to abandon generations of nonaligned status and ask to join NATO in 2022, which required unanimous approval by member nations. Hungary and Turkey, the only holdouts, held up Sweden\u2019s accession until this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n On a visit to Iran last month, Hungary\u2019s increasingly anti-American foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, denounced Mr. Pressman as \u201cthe leader of the Hungarian opposition\u201d in an interview with the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.<\/p>\n Bashing Mr. Pressman and the Biden administration in general has become a regular feature of Hungary\u2019s relations with Washington, which has frequently accused Mr. Orban of backsliding on democracy and ignoring the concerns of its allies.<\/p>\n \u201cWe must take seriously concerns about security issues expressed by allies, not use them as leverage to secure unrelated and parochial political objectives,\u201d Mr. Pressman said at the Central European University in Budapest, an institution that moved most of its teaching to Vienna<\/a> in neighboring Austria in 2018 under pressure from the Hungarian authorities.<\/p>\n NATO\u2019s 1949 founding treaty includes no mechanism for the expulsion of a member and leaves decisions on whether to join or leave up to each member state. Opinion polls indicate strong support among Hungarians for staying in the alliance, and Mr. Orban has insisted he has no desire to pull out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Some officials in the Baltic States, among Ukraine\u2019s most fervent supporters, have raised questions about whether Hungary should be forced out of NATO, but American officials and diplomats have never publicly raised that possibility.<\/p>\n Mr. Pressman said that \u201cthe legitimate security concerns \u2014 shared by Hungary\u2019s 31 Allies \u2014 cannot be ignored\u201d but stopped far short of calling for Hungary\u2019s departure.<\/p>\n Responding to repeated Hungarian denunciations of President Biden and Mr. Orban\u2019s fellow E.U. leaders as \u201cwarmongers\u201d because of their support for Ukraine, Mr. Pressman said: \u201cThe Hungarian policy is based on a fantasy that disarming Ukraine will stop Putin. History shows it would do the reverse.\u201d<\/p>\n While Hungary\u2019s ties with Washington and most European capitals have frayed, the country has cultivated warm relations with not only Russia, on which it relies for supplies of natural gas and help in building a new nuclear power plant, but also a host of other authoritarian countries including Belarus, China and Iran.<\/p>\n Hungary\u2019s ties with Iran and China could undermine the calculation underpinning its combative relations with the Biden administration \u2014 that Mr. Trump will win in November and usher in a new era of hostility to Ukraine and friendship with Mr. Orban.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThere\u2019s nobody that\u2019s better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orban. He\u2019s fantastic,\u201d Mr. Trump said last week.<\/p>\n Mr. Orban has been equally fulsome in his praise of Mr. Trump. \u201cIt is time for another \u2018Make America Great Again\u2019 presidency in the United States,\u201d he said last month in his annual state of the nation address<\/a> in Budapest.<\/p>\n Mr. Pressman insisted that United States policy transcended partisan politics, noting that the Trump administration, too, had taken issue with Hungary\u2019s outreach to Moscow, particularly its decision to allow an obscure Russian financial institution, the International Investment Bank, to open in Budapest<\/a> with sweeping diplomatic immunity.<\/p>\n Western security officials say that move enabled Russian spying and money laundering. Hungary withdrew its support for the bank after the Biden administration imposed sanctions on it.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the Orban government may want to wait out the United States government, the United States will certainly not wait out the Orban administration,\u201d Mr. Pressman said, \u201cWhile Hungary waits, we will act.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n