Rubio wraps Hungary's Orban in US embrace before tight election

Eric Martin, Marton Kasnyik and Andras Gergely, Bloomberg News on Feb 16, 2026

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio showered Viktor Orban with praise on a visit to Hungary as the U.S. doubled down on its support for the strongman leader before an election that could bring an end to his 16 years in power.

Speaking in Budapest on Monday, Rubio pledged that Donald Trump would provide assistance if Hungary ever ran into financial trouble and touted personal rapport between the two leaders.

The intervention, which follows the U.S. president’s personal endorsement of Orban this month, comes as the Hungarian prime minister’s party is trailing in the opinion polls before the April 12 vote.

“I can say to you with confidence that President Trump is deeply committed to your success,” Rubio said at a joint news conference with Orban. “We want this country to do well. It’s in our national interest, especially as long as you’re the prime minister and the leader of this country.”

Orban is struggling to close the gap in the polls behind the Tisza party of Peter Magyar, a former insider of the ruling Fidesz party, who wants to bring Hungary back into the European Union mainstream.

The contest in the country of around 10 million is turning into a major test of strength between the E.U. and the U.S. as mutual ties strain to near breaking point.

Magyar, who spent the weekend meeting European leaders including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk at the Munich Security Conference, has pledged to use his sway to regain access to tens of billions in E.U. funding that has been frozen over corruption concerns.

Addressing a hotel ballroom filled with delegates from across the world at the same conference on Saturday, Rubio said that Europe’s fate is intertwined with the U.S., while faulting the continent for what he said was a drift away from their shared Western values.

Budapest and Bratislava were the only two other destinations during the secretary of state’s trip, which underscores the importance for the Trump administration of supporting like-minded governments on the continent.

Orban has spent years cultivating close ties with U.S. president having endorsed him during the 2016 election campaign. Both leaders share nationalistic rhetoric and take aggressive stance against immigration. But Orban’s support among Hungarian population has dwindled recently amid a voter backlash over corruption and economic malaise.

Government-controlled media, a major force that has kept the prime minister in power, seized on the meeting as evidence that Budapest could only benefit from the prime minister’s Washington ties and that he wasn’t isolated.

On Sunday, Magyar said that he expected European funding to be restored immediately after an election victory for his party, suggesting leaders would take a “political decision” even before legislation had been enacted to address the corruption that critics say has become endemic.

“Voters may now weigh Tisza’s promise to bring home the suspended E.U. funds” against “a still vague prospect of a ‘financial shield’ from the United States the probability and conditions of which remain entirely unknown,” said Zsuzsanna Vegh, an analyst at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin.

The Hungarian leader has also frequently sparred with the E.U. and has opposed military support for Ukraine since the start of the Russian full-scale invasion four years ago. On Monday, the prime minister repeated his claim that Ukraine was interfering in Hungary’s elections, asserting that Kyiv was financing the opposition. He provided no evidence to back his claims.

Orban also maintains close diplomatic and energy ties to Russia and has made his central European country a major destination for Chinese investment. Rubio on Monday downplayed Hungary’s dependence on Russian oil, saying it was due to the Hungarian leader’s relationship with Trump that his country was granted a waiver from U.S. sanctions.

The visit follows Rubio’s meeting with Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico, another skeptic of the E.U. and of military support to Ukraine. Standing alongside Fico on Sunday, Rubio pledged to make “not just Slovakia, but Central Europe, a key component of how we engage the continent and the world.”

Rubio also signed deals on civilian nuclear energy cooperation involving building small modular reactors with both countries.

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—With assistance from Thomas Escritt.