Hungary’s Orban says Trump strategy grasps Europe’s ‘civilisation-scale decline’

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BUDAPEST, Dec 11 (Reuters) – The new National Security Strategy of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration shows that America understands Europe’s “civilisational-scale decline”, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban wrote on X on Thursday.

In a sweeping strategy document published last week, Trump said the United States could reassess its relationship with Europe, and that the continent faces “civilizational erasure” and must change course.

The document caused shock across Europe, but Orban, a long-time Trump ally, called it “the most important and most interesting document of recent years”.

He said it showed Washington had grasped that Europe reached an “economic dead end” and that its values, democracy and free market were all in danger.

Orban also said the U.S. administration understood that Europe needed to rebuild its relationship with Russia “at a strategic level”.

Orban has maintained close ties to Moscow even since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, and has often criticised European Union sanctions against Russia.

“America has a precise understanding of Europe’s decline. They see the civilisational-scale decline that we in Hungary have been fighting against for fifteen years. At last, we are not fighting against it alone,” Orban said.

Last month, the United States granted Hungary a one-year exemption from U.S. sanctions for using Russian oil and gas after Orban pressed his case for a reprieve during a cordial meeting with Trump in Washington.

(Reporting by Anita Komuves; Editing by Kevin Liffey)