Foreign minister: ‘Good news’ for Hungary that US putting national interests first

It is “good news” for Hungary and the rest of the world that US President Donald Trump is putting national interests first, the foreign minister said on Tuesday.

Addressing a conference in Budapest on the US, Péter Szijjártó said that Trump’s new policy “has put an end to an unnatural situation” whereby a state had to “feel ashamed” of putting its own nation first.

He said the world was witnessing the birth of a new United States. Hungary’s prime task now is to protect the country’s interests and “turn changes to our advantage,” he said.

The minister said “we are living in a new world and a new world order”. The last week has been a sobering reminder for everyone that terror threats have moved into the everyday lives of Europeans, he said. It has made clear that there are certain topics on which we believed there was a broad consensus around the world, and everyone took it for granted that this consensus would be implemented. “But it appears that when such consensus is toppled, things are put in a completely new light,” he said.

Szijjártó said the election of Trump had come as a great surprise, but it was the Americans that elected the president, not the international media or the international political establishment. Since it was the American people that chose Trump, it would be wrong to politically question the basis on which he was chosen, he said.

He said two strategies were possible: the “strategy of crying” which would not change anything; or it would be possible to bring about decisions that, amidst new and unexpected circumstances, would “turn the situation to our advantage”. Old dogmas and consensuses have been toppled and this likely to continue into the future too, he added.