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Celerity

(43,340 posts) Mon May 13, 2019, 02:42 PM May 2019

After years on the outs, Hungary's far-right nationalist welcomed at the White House

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/13/politics/trump-hungary-viktor-orban/index.html

He's rolled back democratic checks on his power, mused about creating a European ethnostate and erected a razor-wire fence to keep migrants out, angering the rest of the European Union. So why is Hungary's far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán meeting with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Monday?

Administration officials say the invitation to the White House for talks — the first for a Hungarian prime minister in years — is part of a concerted strategy to re-engage Central European nations as Russia and China seek to exert influence in the region. But the visit is raising questions about which leaders Trump is looking to cultivate — including a long list of global strongmen — at the expense of more traditional US allies.

Orbán was largely iced out during the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, both concerned about the steps he took to consolidate power and block independent media. He last visited the White House for one-on-one meetings in 2001, during his first stint as prime minister, but was refused a meeting with the President, instead resigned to meeting only with then-Vice President Dick Cheney.

Since then, he's adopted a more stridently nationalist tone — including calls to create in Hungary a homogenous society that blocks asylum seekers or other refugees. "We must state that we do not want to be diverse," he said in a 2018 speech. "We do not want our own color, traditions and national culture to be mixed with those of others."

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