Trump extends invitation to anti-migrant Hungarian PM Orban

Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in an interview published online by Hungarian business daily Világgazdaság that Trump made it clear to him that “he thinks highly of Hungary”.

Orban, who called a referendum to prohibit Hungary from taking an EU quota of refugees in October, said in July that Trump’s anti-migration policies would be better for Europe and Hungary.

The right-wing leader had a fence built on Hungary’s southern borders last year to stop the influx of migrants trying to reach Western Europe.

In the summer of 2015 Hungary erected the 4m high fence along its 175 km border to neighbouring Serbia to keep out the tens of thousands illegal immigrants from the Middle East trying to reach the European Union.

With the Hungary-Serbia border closed, migrants headed to Croatia instead, but as Croatia led the migrants to the Hungary-Croatia border, Hungary then started the construction of a second fence along its border with Croatia on 18 September 2015.

Orban has lauded the victory of Trump, and was quoted as saying he felt that Hungary’s position had “improved greatly” with the new president bound for the White House.

Orban said: “He invited me to Washington, I told him that I hadn’t been there for a long time as I had been treated as a ‘black sheep’, to which he replied, laughing: ‘Me too’.”

“I think America will now have a president who is not ideologically limited,” Orban added. “He is an open person who is much more interested in success, efficiency and results than in political theories.”

Orban earlier hailed Trump’s victory as “great news,” which would allow Western civilization to return to “true democracy and straight, honest talk,” freed from the “paralyzing constraint of political correctness.”

The London Telegraph reported that at 5am on the day of US election, Orban’s son called to break the news that Clinton would definitely be out. “I said ‘you’re kidding!’” Orban recalled, “I thought ‘What a day!’”.