Orbán’s claims of Trump summit triumph mask growing doubts over his grip on power | Hungary

As Viktor Orbán would tell it, he had the perfect meeting with Donald Trump.

After visiting the White House last week, the embattled Hungarian prime minister quickly declared victory, saying he had secured an indefinite exemption from US sanctions on oil and gas imported from Russia. The deal would shield Hungarians from skyrocketing energy prices ahead of parliamentary elections next year and potentially boost Orbán’s chances of extending his 15-year rule.

Since then, Hungary and the US have disputed the terms of the deal, which remains just a verbal agreement between Budapest and Washington, and the White House is said to be wary of throwing its full weight behind Orbán as he faces a potential revolt at the polls that could bring the opposition to power.

“Orbán hopes words will be enough to keep him above water,” said a diplomatic source in Washington, adding that Trump and his Republican allies had become increasingly sceptical of the Hungarian leader’s chances in next April’s elections.

The dispute is whether Hungary has received a temporary or permanent reprieve from sanctions targeted at the Russian energy majors Rosneft and Lukoil, which have continued to supply Hungary and Slovakia despite anger from other countries in the European Union.

Hungary has claimed that Trump promised them an indefinite exemption, effectively allowing the country to continue to import energy from Russia. But the administration has said it has only exempted Hungary from the sanctions for one year.

“We have received a waiver for an unlimited period from the sanctions. Anyone who states differently wasn’t present during the meeting,” the Hungarian foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, said during a press briefing last Saturday, calling media reports “fake news”.

The deal was important enough for Orbán to give a rare interview to the Hungarian television channel ATV. “The exemption from sanctions is valid as long as he is president there and I’m the prime minister here,” he said, effectively tying the deal to his support in the upcoming elections.

Describing their conversation, Orbán said Trump told him the US would “exempt Hungary [indefinitely] from the US sanctions”. Sweetening the deal, Orbán also said Trump had offered a “financial shield” to Hungary that could be worth up to $20bn if funding was cut from the European Union.

During the same meeting, Hungary had committed to buying US liquefied natural gas (LNG) valued at $600m and pledged to spend $700m on US military supplies.

But after Orbán went public with the terms of the deal, the Trump administration quickly offered a clarification: the deal was just a verbal agreement, and it was just for one year.

“In the case of the pipelines on oil and gas, it’s a one-year extension, because it would be deeply traumatic to their economy to cut them off immediately,” the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, told reporters on Thursday.

Sources at the US state department and in Congress have also told the Guardian that no steps have been taken yet to codify the deal.

“All we have heard is that there is a one-year waiver,” said a congressional aide. “We will be receiving some sort of Congressional notification, but we have not received that yet. Among the pro-Orbán circles, there will be claims that will exaggerate the importance of these preliminary statements, both on arms and energy. You can look back at the US-Turkey aircraft deal, where similar things have happened.”

A state department official said that there had been no official notification of the exemption but that discussions between the two leaders could take time to result in a concrete agreement. The decision could also be one simply not to enforce secondary sanctions against Hungary, they said.

The ambiguity has become a regular feature of the Trump administration’s deals with foreign countries, suggested the congressional aide, and the results of the meeting could have very well been “performative”.

Congressional republicans have remained sceptical about Orbán’s close relationship with Russia and his positions on national security issues, including the war in Ukraine, said the aide. “Orbán is still maintaining his close relations with Putin, and he is not being helpful to Zelenskyy,” they said.

The congressional aide indicated no details had been shared regarding current or forthcoming arms sales to Hungary.

Yet for Orbán, the key result was to return to Hungary with what he and his Fidesz party could claim as a triumph.

“For the Fidesz camp, this is a victory. This is how they explain why they can keep utility prices low. Because of the election campaign, this is a strong message”, said Botond Feledy, a Brussels-based Hungarian geopolitical analyst. “The opposition is now asking whether the $700m [arms deal] is worth it for Hungary and why Hungary hasn’t been preparing since 2022 to cut ties with Russian energy sources. They are suggesting that the price of Orbán’s pro-Russian stance has now been paid at the White House,” he added.

Trump’s intervention last month in the Argentinian election appears to have provided a roadmap for other ideological allies around the world to seek US support ahead of crucial elections. But according to a diplomatic source in Washington, strict EU regulations would prevent the US from cutting the same deal to prop up Hungary’s economy as it did with Argentina.

“The opposition seems more values-aligned to Republicans anyway,” said the aide, referring to the opposition leader, Péter Magyar, who recently praised Trump in a social media post.