Hungary’s far-right PM calls for Trump’s return: ‘Come back, Mr President’

The Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán has called for Donald Trump's return to office, claiming their shared brand of hard-right populism is on the rise around the world, in a speech to US Republicans and their European allies in Budapest.

Orbán was addressing the second annual meeting of the US Conservative Political Action Coalition (CPAC) in the Hungarian capital, aimed at cementing radical rightwing ties across the Atlantic. He said that conservatives have "occupied big European sanctuaries", which he listed as Budapest, Warsaw, Rome and Jerusalem. He added that Vienna "is also not hopeless" .

He noted that Washington and Brussels were still in the grip of liberalism, which he described as a "virus that will atomize and disintegrate our nations".

The Orbán government has made tentative approaches to open contacts with Ron DeSantis, with the Hungarian president, Katalin Novák, flying to meet the Florida governor in Tallahassee in March, but at Thursday's CPAC conference it was overwhelmingly Trumpist, and Orbán threw his full-throated support behind the former US president.

He said: "I'm sure if President Trump would be the president, there would be no war in Ukraine and Europe. Come back, Mr President. Make America great again and bring us peace."

The prime minister, who last year won his fourth consecutive term in office, portrayed Hungary's self-described "illiberal Christian democracy" - widely criticised for its constraints on media and academic freedom, and for its anti-LGBTQ+ legislation - as a model for the world.

"Hungary is an incubator where the conservative policies of the future are being tested," Orbán said.