Orbán says Trump will not punish Hungary for buying Russian energy, reducing impact of sanctions

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán says his country has received an exemption from U.S. sanctions on Russian energy after a meeting in the White House with President Donald Trump, an allowance that will keep Russian oil and gas flowing to Hungary in a sign of the close affinity between the two leaders.

Orbán, a longtime Trump ally, had come to Washington seeking to convince the president to allow Hungary to continue importing Russian oil and gas without being subject to sanctions Trump’s administration has placed on Russian fossil fuels. A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly, said Hungary will get an exemption for a year.

The nationalist Hungarian leader has called access to Russian energy a “vital” issue for his landlocked country, and said he planned to discuss with Trump the “consequences for the Hungarian people” if the sanctions took effect.

During a press briefing with Hungarian media following his talks with Trump, Orbán said Hungary had “been granted a complete exemption from sanctions” affecting Russian gas delivered to Hungary from the TurkStream pipeline, and oil from the Druzhba pipeline.

“We asked the president to lift the sanctions,” Orbán said. “We agreed and the president decided, and he said that the sanctions will not be applied to these two pipelines.”

Hungary agreed to buy U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) as part of the discussions, the U.S. State Department said in a fact sheet, noting contracts were expected to be worth about $600 million. The two nations also agreed to work together on nuclear energy, including small modular reactors.

Hungary will also purchase nuclear fuel from the U.S.-based Westinghouse Electric Company, Orbán said. That fuel will be used to power Hungary’s Paks nuclear plant, which until now has relied on Russian-supplied nuclear fuel, though Hungarian officials earlier stressed that Budapest will continue its purchase of Russian nuclear fuel as well.