Viktor Orbán to meet Donald Trump in Washington on November 7

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will meet US President Donald Trump in Washington on November 7, Minister Gergely Gulyás, head of the Prime Minister's Office, announced at Thursday's Government Info briefing. A public press conference will be held in the Oval Office after the meeting.

He also said that Orbán's trip aims to be beneficial for the Hungarian economy, so "decisions will also be made on agreements concerning energy, the military industry, the economy, and finance." Gulyás also spoke about the planned peace summit, saying that Orbán and Trump will also discuss how to bring about a meeting between the US and Russia.

Yesterday, the business news site Bloomberg reported that the two leaders will meet on November 8. According to the site, the location has not yet been decided, although it was expected to be the White House. According to the Bloomberg article, the main topic of the meeting may be how the sanctions imposed on Russia will affect Hungary.

As we wrote, Orbán had already hinted at the meeting to Trump when he approached the US president at the peace conference in Egypt two weeks ago and said that he would be in Washington on November 8. The conversation between the two leaders was presumably recorded by the microphone in front of Trump, against Orbán's knowledge and will.

Orbán and Trump discussed Hungary's dependence on Russian energy over the phone in September, and it seemed that the Hungarian prime minister had managed to convince the US president not to punish Hungary for not weaning itself off Russian energy imports. Last week, however, Matt Whitaker, the US ambassador to NATO, said in an interview with Fox News that countries such as Hungary, Turkey, and Slovakia, which continue to purchase Russian oil and gas, must develop plans as soon as possible and implement measures to become independent of Russian energy sources.