Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban ended his visit to Washington with a significant political gain ahead of the 2026 parliamentary election. After the talks, the administration of Donald Trump agreed to grant Budapest an exemption from the sanctions regime, allowing Hungary for now to continue buying Russian oil and gas.
That result was crucial for Orban: a disruption of supplies threatened higher utility bills and further pressure on his ruling Fidesz party, which polls show trailing the opposition Tisza party led by Peter Magyar. Before the meeting, Trump publicly backed the Hungarian leader, saying he was “doing a fantastic job.”
Orban argued that Hungary receives energy through pipelines and has no access to seaports. He said that without an agreement, household bills could have doubled as early as December. Hungary imports gas via TurkStream and oil through the Druzhba pipeline; according to CREA, it remained the EU’s largest buyer of Russian energy in September 2025.
At a press conference, Orban described the U.S. concessions as broad and open-ended. AFP, however, cited a White House source as saying the exemption would last for one year and that Hungary had agreed to buy about $600 million in U.S. LNG. Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, for his part, said negotiations were still continuing on a five-year contract for 2 billion cubic meters.
Another outcome of the visit was the full removal of U.S. sanctions on construction of the Paks-2 nuclear plant, a Rosatom project. Budapest also reached an agreement with Westinghouse to supply fuel for the operating Paks-1 plant in a deal worth about $114 million and signed a memorandum on nuclear cooperation, including possible talks on building ten small modular reactors.
The foreign-policy part of the meeting produced less. Orban again called for peace in Ukraine and praised Trump’s efforts, but the two sides gave no timetable for a possible Russian-American summit in Budapest. Trump said the meeting had been postponed because the Russian authorities “simply do not want to stop yet.”