President Joe Biden’s administration is continuing to do its best to alienate itself from legitimate U.S. allies simply because he disagrees with them politically.
For the second consecutive year, Hungary has been left out of Biden’s “Summit for Democracy,” which includes 120 countries on its guest list, according to the Daily Wire.
In October 2020, just a month before the presidential election, Biden referred to Viktor Orban’s conservative, anti-woke government as “totalitarian.” He said, “You see what’s happening from Belarus through Poland and Hungary and the rise of totalitarian regimes in the world.” Both Poland and Hungary have legislation that prohibits gay marriage and restricts gay adoption.
About two weeks ago, Hungary’s justice minister, Judit Varga, announced that the Orban government would take up the defense of an education law in the Court of Justice of the EU. This law, which was passed in 2021, prohibits the use of materials promoting homosexuality and gender change in schools, the outlet reported.
In August 2022, Orban said during a speech at CPAC, “We must take back the institutions in Washington and in Brussels. … To sum up, the mother is a woman. The father is a man, and leave our kids alone, full stop, end of discussion.”
In remarks to The Heritage Foundatin, Zoltan Koskovics of the Budapest Center for Fundamental Rights said: “The woke sect that has taken over the Democratic Party does not like the pro-Western stance of our government. We need a strong America in a dangerous international situation. But not a woke America.”
The Hungarian government confirmed in July 2022 that the Biden administration had terminated the 1979 income tax treaty with the United States. The treaty would no longer be effective from January 2024. According to reports, the Biden administration terminated the treaty due to Orban’s government’s opposition to the EU Directive, which aimed to establish a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15 percent. However, the Biden Treasury Department stated that the treaty was terminated due to Hungary’s “Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with Respect to Taxes on Income.”
In October 2022, Péter Márki-Zay, who is Viktor Orbán’s main political rival, acknowledged that his Hungary for All Movement (MMM) had received millions of euros from the United States during his election campaign. The funds were reportedly transferred to his movement through an American foundation known as Action for Democracy, and Márki-Zay admitted that his movement used the money to pay for campaign expenses.
“Action for Democracy had reportedly named Italy, Brazil, Hungary, and Poland, all led by conservative governments at the time, as targets of their movement,” the Daily Wire added.
