Hungarian Election Exposes Tensions at the Heart of Donald Trump’s Plans to Boost the Far‑Right in Europe

While fulsome in their support for Donald Trump for more than a decade, many European rightwing populists have begun to realize the fraught nature of their association with Trump. “America first” is exactly what it says on the tin. Moreover, Trump’s interpretation of what it means makes it even worse for some of his erstwhile supporters.

For Poland’s president, Karol Nawrocki, Trump’s cozy relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin runs counter to the almost universal perception of Russia as the main threat to Polish security. For the Danish People’s Party, which sits with the far-right Patriots for Europe faction in the European parliament, Trump’s designs on Greenland were so unpalatable that one of its members, Anders Vistisen, told the US president to “fuck off”.

For others, like the French Rassemblement National (National Rally), Trump’s tariff threats have affected some of their core constituencies among farmers. Even more so, Trump’s illegal war against Iran, hugely unpopular across European electorates, highlights the electoral liabilities of an association with the US president.

This does not make these rightwing populist movements more liberal. They still share a broad resentment of liberalism and what it stands for: open societies, open borders and a commitment to global institutions. But many of these parties have staked their political legitimacy on the defense of the sovereignty of their individual nation states. They are now asking themselves whether this sovereignty is perhaps more threatened by Washington – and Moscow – than by Brussels.

The answer to this question will partly be determined by the outcome of Sunday’s elections in Hungary.

What an Orbán Victory Would Mean
A win for Orbán would, at a minimum, indicate sufficient desire for an autocratic and illiberal model of governance and at least some residual appeal of an alignment with Trump. But that logic may not prevail for long in the face of the conflict in the Middle East and Russia’s continuing onslaught on Ukraine.

Orbán’s close relationship with Putin – and his persistent obstruction of the EU’s Ukraine policy – is likely to leave him increasingly isolated, even among otherwise ideologically close rightwing populists. This vulnerability became apparent as early as 2022 when Orbán’s long-time ally Jaroslaw Kaczynski, then Polish deputy prime minister, publicly bashed his pro-Russian leanings.

Divisions over the EU’s Russia policy have exposed one significant faultline among rightwing populist movements across Europe between those seeking accommodation with the Kremlin and those seeking deterrence and containment. The far-right Sweden Democrats, for example, threatened to leave the European Conservatives and Reformists parliamentary bloc if Orbán’s Fidesz party had been allowed to join. This is precisely because the Hungarian prime minister was seen as too close to Russia.

For these Russia-skeptical parties, Orbán’s alignment with Putin is clearly anathema. Trump’s apparently warm relationship with the Russian president is likely to deepen their unease about aligning too closely with the White House. Geographical proximity to Russia and a long history of confrontation with Russia will remain powerful drivers for these parties’ foreign and security policies.

Trump’s endorsement of Orbán may thus more effectively accelerate Orbán’s isolation among rightwing populists in Europe. This will undermine his agenda of building a powerful coalition of like-minded illiberal leaders eroding the EU from within.

These tensions and contradictions at the heart of a supposedly ideologically well-aligned transatlantic populist right movement predate Hungary’s parliamentary elections and they will outlast them. At a time of almost unprecedented global disorder and uncertainty, the battle for Hungary is both an election campaign and, more broadly, a key episode in the ongoing debate over the meaning of the west as a geopolitical project.

Stefan Wolff is Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham. This article is published courtesy of The Conversation.