The Foreign Ministry said it is clear how important Hungary is to the new US administration, noting that US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz met Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, in Washington, DC on Thursday, just after returning from Riyadh.
Minister Szijjártó and Waltz have met on a number of occasions, the ministry said in a statement, adding that relations between the two countries had “entered into a completely new era”.
“We have known for eight years that Donald Trump pursues a patriotic economic policy, strives for balanced trade ties, which is understandable from his point of view,” the statement quoted Minister Szijjártó as saying.
Europe’s politicians should stop “wailing and hiding and talking of the devil; we knew very well what we had to prepare for… They should come up with proposals for making Europe’s economic and trade ties with the US balanced in the future,” he said.
European tariffs on American cars were 10 percent, while US tariffs were only 2.5 percent, and the Hungarian government has proposed reducing tariffs on American cars “as a step towards equilibrium”. This could result in a process that leads to a bilateral agreement “yielding mutual benefits”, the minister said.
“European politicians are clearly frustrated as they remember what they said about Donald Trump earlier. And Trump remembers, too. That’s why they don’t dare to come out into the open and start talks; they don’t dare to make such proposals proactively,” he said.
“They are a bit paralysed in this new situation … they can’t or won’t acknowledge this completely new global political situation, and this isn’t good,” he said.
