Trump and Viktor Orban Meet in Whitehouse- The outcome as of today….
Hungary secures ‘full exemption’ from US sanctions on Russian oil – Orban
President Donald Trump has agreed to provide Budapest with an exemption from Washington’s sanctions on Russian oil, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told reporters after their meeting at the White House on Friday.
Hungary Today
The much anticipated meeting between U.S. president Donald Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has just taken place at the White House. The Hungarian leader has been given a cordial welcome by President Trump, a sign of the what Mr. Orbán called the “golden age of U.S.-Hungarian relations.”
PM Orbán has called on the President to make peace efforts concerning Ukraine a priority of American-Hungarian relations. Donald Trump has in turn highlighted immigration as one of the leading topics of the discussions. He said that the Hungarian government has not made a mistake in terms of handling illegal migration, while Europe has mishandled the issue. For this “I like and respect him”, the President said referring to Mr. Orbán. Hungary is a country that is lead properly, therefore Mr. Orbán is going to be successful at the next national elections (in April 2026), predicted the U.S. president.
Donald Trump Signs New Nuclear Deal with Hungary
President Donald Trump on Friday announced a new nuclear energy cooperation deal with Hungary, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, marking the first agreement of its kind between the two nations. Hungary’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, said the deal includes plans to buy American nuclear fuel and U.S. technology for storing spent fuel at the country’s Russian-built Paks nuclear power plant. “We will sign a major intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in nuclear energy with my foreign minister colleague Marco Rubio,” Szijjarto said. The move comes as Hungary seeks to diversify its energy sources while continuing to rely on Russia’s Rosatom, which has been constructing two new reactors at Paks under a 2014 deal that bypassed competitive bidding. Szijjarto said that, for the first time in the nation’s history, Hungary will purchase U.S. nuclear fuel in addition to its existing Russian supply as it works to meet growing domestic energy demands.
I’d saved this oilprice.com article prior to the announcement of the exemption being granted
President Donald Trump told Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Friday that the U.S. is “looking at” exempting Hungary from sanctions targeting Russian oil a move that chips away at one of the few symbolic levers the U.S. still maintains over Russia’s energy exports while signaling flexibility toward an ally that’s long played both sides of the energy chessboard.
The exemption talk comes just as Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed to halt Russian oil shipments to Hungary through the Druzhba pipeline, saying the flow “will disappear from Europe” as Kyiv moves to stop Russia’s war financing via energy exports. Hungary’s top refiner MOL, however, says it can already source up to 80% of its crude from non-Russian suppliers, which is a dramatic shift from two years ago when it argued diversification was impossible.
Hungary currently relies on Russian crude for about 86% of its oil supply, and its refineries were built to handle Russia’s Urals blend. Transitioning feedstock means costly reconfigurations and higher input prices, but MOL’s latest statement hints that it has quietly made more progress than Budapest has publicly admitted. If true, the claim undermines Orbán’s narrative that sanctions relief is essential for Hungary’s energy security
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