17 April 2026

Viktor Orbán’s defeat in the Hungarian elections, after he was actively supported by Donald Trump and US Vice President J.D. Vance, was the last straw for the European far right. They had already begun distancing themselves from Trump due to his aggressive behavior toward Europe and the war he started in the Middle East. Now it has become clear that closeness to him could undermine their electoral prospects.

Trump has become politically toxic even for his closest ideological allies in Europe, Politico reports . “We need to stay away from him,” Marine Le Pen told her fellow party members at a meeting of National Rally MPs on Tuesday, a senior party official who was present told the publication.

An additional factor was Trump’s attack on Pope Leo XIV. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was perhaps the last European leader trying to maintain good relations with Trump, but she decided to abandon them when he shifted his attacks from the pope to her. “Meloni was looking for an excuse to distance herself from Trump, and his direct attack gave her that opportunity,” Lorenzo Castellani, a research fellow at LUISS University in Rome, told Bloomberg. “The attacks on the pope and the economic uncertainty [in Italy] likely changed the calculations regarding the viability of an alliance with him.”

Trump had previously praised Meloni, calling her a “wonderful young woman” who had “taken Europe by storm.” But during a meeting on Tuesday, he attacked her for her refusal to support the war in Iran and her statements supporting the pope. On Sunday, Trump criticized the pontiff, who had called for peace, calling him “WEAK on crime and terrible on foreign policy.”

Meloni unequivocally considered such comments “unacceptable.” She told reporters:

When you have allies, and especially if they’re strategic allies, you have to have the courage to express your disagreement. I wouldn’t feel comfortable in a society where religious leaders do as political leaders tell them to.

In response, Trump told the Corriere della Sera newspaper: “I’m shocked by her behavior. I thought she was brave, but I was wrong.”

Given that right-wing and far-right parties often adhere to conservative religious values, and in a situation where European voters largely blame the US president for the conflict in the Middle East and rising energy prices, distancing themselves from Trump becomes a matter of political expediency.

“Orbán’s defeat can’t be explained simply by voter fatigue,” a senior National Alliance official told Politico. “Under the current circumstances, closeness to the United States hasn’t appealed to Hungarian voters.”

To boost its chances of winning the 2027 French presidential election, the National Rally will try to avoid associations with the Trump administration. “Close ties with Washington could become a liability and be misinterpreted,” said one of Le Pen’s closest allies. “We respect our friends in Washington, but we don’t want them telling us what to do.”

Similarly, the Alternative for Germany (AfD)’s position has begun to shift, especially given the upcoming regional elections in September. The “ostentatious display of friendship” between Budapest and Washington, including Vance’s speech at a rally in support of Orbán, “has hung around [the Hungarian leader’s] neck like a millstone,” AfD MP Matthias Mosdorf wrote in X.

At the end of March, AfD leader Alice Weidel instructed her Bundestag faction leaders to curtail the number of trips to the United States by party leaders, which were planned to strengthen ties with Republicans from Trump’s MAGA (America First) movement, Politico reported , citing four people with knowledge of the matter.

After Trump’s return to the White House, Nigel Farage, a leading Brexit figure and founder of the anti-immigrant Reform UK party, heralded “the beginning of a golden age.” Farage supported Trump during his campaign, visited him at Mar-a-Lago, and compared him to Winston Churchill. But in a recent interview with the Financial Times, he described his acquaintance with the president as follows: “I didn’t know him much, but that’s it.”

Trump’s supporters in Europe are losing the benefits of their alliance with him, says Beniamino Irdi, a former Italian government official and now director of the consulting firm Highground:

Maintaining strong ties with the US requires benefits it is no longer willing to provide, such as predictability and reliable security protection.

https://ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/04/17/34-34-a192995