President Donald Trump and Hungary’s autocratic leader Viktor Orban, whom Trump has repeatedly praised as a “strongman,” will meet at the White House on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Expected to be part of the talks is Russia’s war in Ukraine, specifically new U.S. sanctions<\/a> targeting two of Moscow’s largest oil companies and their subsidiaries that are set to go into effect on Nov. 21.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last week, Trump said Orban wanted an exemption from the sanctions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “He has asked for an exemption. We haven’t granted one, but he has asked. He’s a friend of mine. He’s asked for an exemption,\u201d Trump told reporters on Air Force One.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Orban was recently going to play host to a summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, before Trump called the proposed meeting off amid frustration with the lack of progress in peace talks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump said they had picked Budapest, Hungary as the location because both he and Putin liked Orban.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “He’s been a very good leader in the sense of running his country,” Trump said of Orban.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ahead of Friday’s meeting, Orban posted on X<\/a> that he hoped to “open a new chapter in Hungarian\u2013American relations with President Trump.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Our goal is to establish a strategic partnership that includes energy cooperation, investments, defence collaboration, and discussions on the post-war landscape following the Russia\u2013Ukraine conflict. We are working on an agreement based on mutual benefits, one that serves the interests of every Hungarian citizen,” Orban wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump also welcomed Orban to the White House during his first term, in 2019, breaking from his predecessors who had shunned Hungary’s prime minister from Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The two men met several times when Trump was out of office at his Florida estate, including during the summer of the 2024 campaign and after Trump became president-elect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Orban has been embraced by many prominent American conservatives over his positions on immigration and LGBTQ issues, and has spoken several times at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Orban hosted a CPAC event in Hungary earlier this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n