Hungary allowed to purchase Russian oil despite sanctions after Trump-Orbán meeting
Trump cited Hungary's landlocked geography as justification for the exemption on sanctioned oil from Moscow. The close ties between the two men is likely a factor as well.
The Trump administration said it will exempt Hungary from sanctions placed on Russia’s energy industry over the Ukraine War.
This comes on the heels of new American sanctions against Russia’s two oil giants, Rosneft and Lukoil.
Though the stated goal there was to bar European nations from purchasing petroleum and other related products from Moscow, Trump appeared to excuse Hungary’s repeated business with Russia, citing the small country’s unique geography.
“They don’t have [the] sea, they don’t have the ports,” Trump told reporters Friday. “They have a difficult problem.”
The president, however, said he was “disturbed” by other European nations with access to the ocean continuing to purchase energy from Russia.
The American exemption towards Hungary for its energy purchases will last for one year, according to information obtained by Reuters.
Trump made the announcement Friday following a friendly meeting with Hungary’s right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whom the president called a “great leader.”
Orbán, like Milorad Dodik – the Bosnian Serb leader who got his American sanctions lifted last month – is cut from the same populist cloth as the MAGA movement.
For example, Orbán joked about hiring White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt after she called a reporter’s question on Friday “fake news.”
Following his conversation with Trump, Orbán announced on X that the U.S. sanctions exemptions would apply to the TurkStream and Friendship pipelines, as seen below.
Another diplomatic consequence may be at hand.
The move by the Trump administration could further inflame tensions between Orbán and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The relationship between the two men has soured (or was never sweet to begin with) over Hungary’s feet-dragging on Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union.
Prior to the Orbán-Trump summit Friday, Zelenskyy vowed to prevent Hungary from buying Russian oil, according to the Kyiv paper Ukrainska Pravda.
The question emerging out of this news now is how much of Washington’s sanction exemption is based on a personal alliance with Orbán versus a true recognition of Hungary’s landlocked geography. In other words, will any nation with a Russian pipeline and no port be able to make the case that they too should be exempt from the sanctions on energy from Moscow?
The answer will shed light on how porous these sanctions really are.