By Theodore Kupfer
Monday, February 11, 2019
Years of American disengagement from central Europe have
contributed to a growing Chinese and Russian presence in the region that the
U.S. intends to counter, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday at the
outset of a weeklong diplomatic trip.
“I think [Hungary is] welcoming U.S. engagement,” Pompeo
told reporters in an impromptu press conference at the U.S. embassy. “I think
for a long time we shunned them in a way that drove them to fill the vacuum
with folks who didn’t share our values.” No American president has visited
Hungary since 2006, and Barack Obama’s administration grew frustrated with the
Viktor Orbán–led Fidesz government. Under President Trump, Pompeo said, that
would change and the U.S. would “compete for positive influence in the region.”
The week-long trip will take Pompeo to Budapest, Warsaw,
and Bratislava, as well as briefly to Brussels and Reykjavik.
If the Trump administration is determined to upgrade
relations with the “Visegrad” countries — Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and the
Czech Republic — it comes at a delicate time. On January 27, the Wall Street Journal reported that “Orban
strongly objects to U.S. pressure aimed at curbing the influence of Moscow and
Beijing in Europe.” Days later, Hungarian investigative outlet Direkt36 reported on a leaked diplomatic
cable that showed American official Wess Mitchell warning his Hungarian
counterparts: “Support is starting to dissipate for those who believe in
U.S.-Hungarian relations.”
But Pompeo cast his effort to “renew and deepen the
special bond” between the U.S. and central Europe as an exercise in mutual
interests. “We must not let Putin drive wedges between friends in NATO,” said
Pompeo at a joint press conference with Hungarian foreign minister Peter
Szijjarto. “Hungarians know all too well from their history that an
authoritarian Russia will never be a friend to the freedom and sovereignty of
smaller nations.” In November, Hungary denied extradition of two Russian arms
dealers to the United States, earning a rebuke from the State Department.
Pompeo was perhaps most pointed when it came to China.
“Russia’s not the only power that wants to erode freedom in this region,” he
said. Chinese telecom company Huawei has expanded its presence in Europe,
signing a memorandum of understanding with Hungary last year to build critical
5G infrastructure. At the embassy, Pompeo warned that the U.S. would be forced
to reevaluate its partnerships with countries if they continued to do business
with Huawei, citing security concerns. (Poland arrested a Huawei employee for
espionage last month.) He also referenced the PRC’s belt-and-road initiative —
an infrastructure push across Eurasia that has left some participating nations
deeply in debt. “Beijing’s handshake sometimes comes with strings,” he
said.
Under Obama, relations soured between the U.S. and
Hungary when Viktor Orbán took power in 2010. Critics charge Orbán with
presiding over a dangerous mix of authoritarian backsliding and corruption, and
nonpartisan group Freedom House, citing a putative crackdown on adversarial
NGOs and press, recently downgraded Hungary from “free” to “partly free” in its
yearly report. But Pompeo said that any problems Hungarian democracy might be
experiencing cannot be solved by American absence, and, before a scheduled dinner
with Orbán on Monday night, met with the heads of assorted NGOs. He vowed to
discuss the state of civil liberties in Hungary with Orbán.
Szijjarto, the Hungarian official, pushed back on the
notion that Hungary was in hock to Russia or China — at least any more than its
European counterparts. He also compared Orbán’s positions on issues such as
immigration and national identity to those of Trump. Seen in that light,
Pompeo’s message was simple: “The Russians and the Chinese . . . do not
remotely share the American ideals that we care so deeply about.”
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