President Donald Trump said Friday he is considering granting Hungary an exemption from U.S. sanctions on Russian oil to allow the country to continue purchasing energy from Moscow.
According to Fox News, when Trump was asked about Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s request, the president said, “We’re looking at it because it’s very difficult for him to get the oil and gas from other areas.
“As you know, they don’t have, they don’t have the advantage of having seas. It’s a great country,” Trump said. “It’s a big country. But they don’t have sea, they don’t have the ports. And so they have a difficult problem.
“There’s another country that has that same problem, by the way,” Trump added, “But when you look at what’s happened with Europe, many of those countries, they don’t have those problems, and they buy a lot of oil and gas from Russia. And, as you know, I’m very disturbed by that because we’re helping them, and they’re going and buying oil and gas from Russia.”
After months of shifting between confrontation and diplomacy toward Moscow, Trump imposed sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies — Rosneft and Lukoil — in October after talks to end the war in Ukraine stalled.
“Every time I speak to Vladimir, I have good conversations, and then they don’t go anywhere,” Trump said when announcing the sanctions. “They just don’t go anywhere.
“I just felt it was time. We’ve waited a long time,” he added when asked why the sanctions were issued then.
The move followed the cancellation of a planned meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in October.
Orbán, who has maintained close ties with Trump, criticized the sanctions as “a mistake.”
“We are thinking about how to build a sustainable system for the Hungarian economy because Hungary is very dependent on Russian oil and gas. And, without them, energy prices will skyrocket, causing shortages in our supplies,” Orbán said during an October meeting in Rome.
Orbán told reporters his talks with Trump would include the exemption request, saying Hungary’s pipelines are “vital” because the nation is landlocked.
Trump and Orbán also discussed the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, agreeing it will likely end soon. “The basic dispute is they just don’t want to stop yet. And I think they will. I think it’s taking a big toll on Russia,” Trump said.
Both leaders suggested it would take a “miracle” for Ukraine to win the war.
Trump praised Orbán as a “great leader,” particularly for his immigration stance. “The fact is that he’s a great leader, and he’s respected all over,” Trump said. “Not necessarily liked by some of the leaders, but, you know, those leaders have proven to be wrong.
“If you look at his stance on immigration and other things, you know, if you look at Europe, they made tremendous mistakes in immigration. It’s really hurting them very badly. He has not made a mistake on immigration.”
Orbán, in turn, applauded Trump and criticized the previous administration.
“The reason why we are here to open a new chapter between the bilateral relations of the United States and Hungary, basically, because during the Democrat administration, everything was ruined,” he said.
“So, after your leaving president, everything was basically blocked, ruined, canceled. A lot of harm done by the previous administration. In the last ten months, president, what you have done, we are very much grateful for that. You restored the old level of the relationship. You improved the bilateral relation. You repaired what was done badly by the previous administration,” Orbán said.
