US Ambassador criticises Hungarian PM for supporting Trump, Russia and China

David Pressman, US Ambassador to Hungary, has criticised Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for openly supporting one of the contenders in the US presidential race, Donald Trump.

As reported by Politico, according to Pressman, Orbán does not conceal whose victory in the US presidential election he would like to see.

"Fidesz continues to ... stake its relationship with the United States on the outcome of one election in November. And if that election doesn’t go the way they hope, their strategy is to wait. In the words of one senior official, 'there is no Plan B," Pressman said.

Along the way, he criticised Orbán’s so-called peacekeeping efforts, claiming that they "risk reducing a security alliance between two great nations into a political alliance between two big personalities".

"The United States has alliances with countries, not personalities within them. Hungary’s government has been signalling – and signalling loudly – distance from its allies, distance from Europe, and distance from the United States," he said.

He believes that given Hungary's increasingly close relations with Russia and China, the West should reconsider relations with Budapest.

"Hungary criticises NATO from within the comfort of the NATO security umbrella, and Hungary criticises the EU under subsidy of the EU's economic umbrella. We [Hungary's allies and partners] ... have to recognise that what we used to dismiss with an eyeroll requires us to look at it directly, and respond to it unflinchingly," the diplomat concluded.

US President Joe Biden has appointed David Pressman as ambassador to Hungary in 2022. Pressman, a former human rights lawyer, is an outspoken critic of Orbán and his government.

He had previously criticised Hungary's prime minister for publicly backing Donald Trump.