Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban with US President Donald Trump Photo: Zoltan Fischer / AFP
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has announced that a new trade agreement with the US will be signed within six months. According to him, this should reduce the impact of the duties that President Donald Trump plans to impose on European goods, including steel, aluminium and cars.
“The duties will be negative for us, but we are negotiating to compensate for these losses with other agreements,” Orban said in an interview with www.ot.hu.
Hungary is an EU country whose economy is critically dependent on the automotive industry. And the new duties from Washington could hit this sector, which is already under pressure due to the slow economic recovery and high inflation.
Amid the announced tariff pressure from the US, the European Union risks a new economic confrontation with Trump, who has already given 90 days’ pause for the parties to reach an agreement.
Hungary, meanwhile, is trying to negotiate some conditions.
The Orbán government also confirmed that it was reinstating the bilateral agreement with the US that had been cancelled by the previous US administration. The new document aims to “mitigate the effects of a possible customs conflict”.
