Analysis of: Trump is ‘deeply committed to your success’, Rubio tells Orbán during Hungary visit – Europe live
The Guardian | February 16, 2026
TL;DR
US cements alliance with Hungary's far-right Orbán regime through energy deals and sanctions exemptions while Europe scrambles for strategic autonomy. Washington leverages Ukraine war to discipline European allies and reward authoritarian partners who align with US capital interests.
Analytical Focus:Contradictions Historical Context Interconnections
The deepening Trump-Orbán alliance, showcased during Rubio's Budapest visit, reveals a fundamental realignment in transatlantic relations that prioritizes ideological affinity and capital flows over traditional liberal democratic partnerships. Washington's explicit endorsement of Hungary—complete with sanctions exemptions for Russian energy imports and civilian nuclear cooperation agreements—demonstrates how US foreign policy increasingly operates through personalized relationships with right-wing nationalist leaders rather than multilateral institutional frameworks. This visit occurs against the backdrop of profound contradictions within the Western alliance. European powers simultaneously pursue "strategic autonomy" through Franco-German nuclear deterrence talks while desperately maintaining dependence on US intelligence and defense systems. The Munich Security Conference exposed this tension starkly: Rubio offered partnership conditional on Europe accepting US leadership on migration, trade, and defense spending, while EU foreign policy chief Kallas defensively rejected "fashionable euro-bashing." Meanwhile, Russia continues pressing maximalist demands in Geneva talks that the US claims only it can facilitate—positioning Washington as indispensable mediator while extracting concessions from all parties. The material stakes extend far beyond diplomatic symbolism. Hungary's role as a Chinese investment hub, its continued reliance on Russian energy, and the proposed US-Hungary nuclear agreement illustrate how energy and capital flows increasingly determine geopolitical alignments. The US sanctions exemption for Hungarian Russian energy imports represents a direct subsidy to Orbán's regime ahead of contested April elections, while 17 new US investments signal American capital's comfort with Hungary's authoritarian governance model. This convergence of right-wing political projects—Trump's America, Orbán's Hungary, and potentially a broader "civilizational" bloc—represents a new phase in capitalist statecraft that abandons liberal democratic pretenses.
Class Dynamics
Actors: US state apparatus (Trump administration), Hungarian ruling class (Fidesz party), European bourgeoisie (Franco-German leadership), Ukrainian state, Russian oligarchic-state complex, US and Chinese capital (investors in Hungary), Hungarian working class (facing low wages, rising costs), European defense industrial base
Beneficiaries: US energy and nuclear corporations seeking European markets, Hungarian political elite maintaining power through US backing, Orbán's patronage networks benefiting from US investment, Defense contractors across NATO countries, Russian energy exporters maintaining Hungarian market access
Harmed Parties: Hungarian workers facing EU's poorest living standards, Ukrainian population caught between great power negotiations, Refugees and migrants targeted by escalating enforcement, European workers facing austerity to fund defense spending, Democratic opposition in Hungary facing US-backed incumbent
The US exercises imperial prerogative to selectively reward and punish allies based on ideological alignment rather than institutional commitments. Washington's ability to grant sanctions exemptions, direct investment flows, and provide political endorsements gives it asymmetric leverage over smaller states like Hungary. The Orbán regime converts this external support into domestic political capital, while European powers like France and Germany find themselves squeezed between US demands and their own populations' resistance to military spending and austerity.
Material Conditions
Economic Factors: Energy dependency (Hungarian reliance on Russian oil/gas), US capital investment flows (17 new investments in Hungary), Defense spending pressures (5% GDP target by 2035), Chinese foreign direct investment in Hungary, European debt constraints limiting French military expansion, Nuclear energy cooperation agreements
Hungary's integration into both Western and Eastern capital circuits creates a unique position where the state mediates between competing imperial blocs while extracting rents from each. The Orbán regime has cultivated a dependent capitalist model relying on foreign investment attraction through tax incentives, labor discipline, and political stability for capital—regardless of source. US nuclear cooperation and Chinese manufacturing investment coexist because both serve capital accumulation under state protection.
Resources at Stake: Russian natural gas and oil transit/imports, Nuclear energy technology and uranium supply chains, Defense industrial contracts across NATO, Ukrainian territory and reconstruction capital, European energy infrastructure investment
Historical Context
Precedents: Cold War US support for authoritarian anti-communist regimes, 1956 Hungarian uprising and Soviet intervention, Post-1989 NATO expansion and EU enlargement, 2008 financial crisis and rise of European right-populism, 2014 Crimea annexation and Western sanctions regime, Trump's first-term cultivation of Orbán relationship
This moment represents a crisis of the post-Cold War liberal international order constructed under US hegemony. The institutional architecture of NATO, EU, and transatlantic partnership was designed to integrate former socialist states into Western capitalist circuits while maintaining US leadership. Now, internal contradictions—between US nationalist capital and European integration, between democratic legitimacy and capital mobility, between energy dependence and geopolitical alignment—are fracturing this order. The US increasingly prefers bilateral deals with compliant nationalist regimes over multilateral consensus, echoing Cold War patterns of supporting authoritarian allies against both communist and liberal opposition.
Contradictions
Primary: The US demands European "strategic autonomy" in defense spending while simultaneously requiring European subordination to US leadership on trade, migration, and Ukraine negotiations—autonomy is acceptable only when it serves American interests.
Secondary: Hungary's simultaneous integration with US, Chinese, and Russian capital creates unstable dependencies that any partner could leverage, European pursuit of nuclear deterrence independence while maintaining that US protection remains "central" to NATO, US brokering Ukraine peace talks while explicitly rewarding states that refuse to support Ukraine militarily, Democratic legitimacy crisis as US endorses Orbán against Hungarian opposition leading in polls
These contradictions are unlikely to resolve through institutional reform. More probable trajectories include: deepening fragmentation of the Western alliance into bilateral US relationships with compliant regimes; European integration crisis as Franco-German axis cannot reconcile sovereignty aspirations with material dependencies; potential Orbán electoral defeat creating friction in US-Hungary relations; or escalation of Ukraine conflict forcing more decisive alignments. The fundamental contradiction between US imperial management and European bourgeois state interests will generate continued instability regardless of specific outcomes.
Global Interconnections
This story illuminates the restructuring of the post-Cold War imperial system under conditions of US relative decline and multipolar competition. Hungary functions as a node where US, Chinese, Russian, and European capital interests intersect—its geographic position, energy infrastructure, and ideological flexibility make it valuable to all parties. Orbán's regime has mastered the art of extracting concessions from competing powers by positioning Hungary as a swing state in great power competition. The Ukraine war serves as the crucible for this realignment. Washington's claim to be the "only nation on earth" capable of brokering peace reflects both real US leverage and ideological positioning against multilateral alternatives. The simultaneous Rubio meetings with Iranian officials in Geneva suggest a broader US strategy of bilateral great power management that bypasses European and international institutions. This represents a shift from hegemony exercised through institutions (IMF, NATO, WTO) toward more direct imperial administration through personal relationships and transactional deals—a form perhaps better suited to managing decline than projecting expansion.
Conclusion
For working-class observers, this diplomatic theater reveals how interstate competition operates to discipline labor across borders. Hungarian workers face EU-lowest wages while their government attracts foreign capital through precisely that cheap labor; Ukrainian workers face conscription and destruction while great powers negotiate their territory's fate; European workers face austerity demands to fund rearmament. The Trump-Orbán alliance demonstrates that capital's preferred political form is increasingly nationalist authoritarianism that can suppress wages, control migration, and provide stable investment environments—"strong leadership" means strong against workers. The fracturing of liberal institutional frameworks removes even rhetorical commitments to labor rights and democratic accountability, suggesting intensified class struggle ahead as the contradictions between nationalist political forms and globalized capital accumulation sharpen.
Suggested Reading
- Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism by V.I. Lenin (1917) Lenin's analysis of inter-imperialist rivalry and the division of the world among great powers directly illuminates the US-Russia-China competition over European spheres of influence visible in this article.
- Prison Notebooks (Selections) by Antonio Gramsci (1935) Gramsci's concepts of hegemony and the integral state help explain how the Trump-Orbán alliance operates through ideological affinity and consent-building among nationalist bases rather than purely coercive means.
- The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein (2007) Klein's analysis of how crises enable rapid policy transformations illuminates how the Ukraine war is being leveraged to restructure European defense spending, energy systems, and transatlantic relations.