Trump to meet with Hungary's Viktor Orban at Mar-a-Lago

Former President Donald J. Trump is expected to meet with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Thursday at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida following the NATO summit in Washington, D.C., according to a Trump campaign official, the New York Times reports.

This comes after the Hungarian Prime Minister met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin on two separate days earlier this month. Zoltan Kovacs, a spokesman for Orban, said the PM's visit to the wartorn countries was "part of his peace mission." Orban has called for a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war, and Trump has vowed several times on the campaign trail to have the war settled if elected as president in November.

It's unclear what the two leaders plan to discuss, but the former Republican US president and the right-wing Hungarian PM have supported one another for quite some time. At the beginning of July, Hungary assumed the rotating presidency of the European Union (EU) with the intention to "Make Europe Great Again." This initiative is reminiscent of the "Make America Great Again" campaign slogan of Donald Trump, whom Orban has supported for the US presidency. The two individuals last met in March also at Trump's Mar-A-Lago residence. The former president frequently touts Orban's public endorsement of his re-election on the campaign trail.

Trump endorsed Orban's candidacy in 2022, saying that the Hungarian PM "has done a powerful and wonderful job." Orban also conducted an unexpected visit on Monday, this time to Beijing, to meet with China's president, Xi Jinping, as per the New York Times. According to the official summary of the meeting released by China, the two parties discussed ideas for ending the conflict in Ukraine.