State Secretary Levente Magyar said the European Union’s executive needed to take steps to reach an agreement with the United States to resolve a tariff war ahead of a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels on Thursday.
“We would like to again encourage and call upon the Commission to do everything in its power to come to some sort of arrangement with the States,” said Magyar, a state secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
He called out the European Commission for its “belated response” to the reciprocal tariffs and said it “should have done a better job”.
Magyar said Hungary’s export-oriented economy was especially vulnerable to the trade war, adding that the new tariffs would cost the country the equivalent of about 1.5pc of its exports.
He said any agreement that would stabilise global trade was a step in the right direction. He also warned against retaliation by the EU that could lead to escalation.
“We should sit down, address the American concerns…and then come to some kind of common understanding,” he added.
Touching on Hungary’s economic relations with China, Magyar said the government would not sever those ties and called initiatives advocating decoupling “a red line”. He added that around 45pc of China’s recent investments in Europe were in Hungary.
“Hungary is benefiting from these very intensive Chinese economic and trade relations. We’re not willing to give those up,” he added.
