U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to begin a two-day visit on Sunday to Slovakia and Hungary, aiming to strengthen ties with their conservative governments, whose leaders maintain close relations with Donald Trump and have frequently clashed with other European Union states.
Rubio will use the trip to discuss energy cooperation and bilateral issues, including NATO commitments, the U.S. State Department said last week.
“These are countries that are very strong with us, very cooperative with the United States, work very closely with us,” Rubio told reporters before departing for Europe on Thursday, adding that the visit offered an opportunity to engage with two countries he had not previously visited.
Rubio, who also serves as Trump’s national security adviser, will meet Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico in Bratislava on Sunday. Fico visited Trump in Florida last month. The trip follows Rubio’s participation in the Munich Security Conference over recent days.
On Monday, Rubio is expected to meet Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is trailing in most opinion polls ahead of an April election that could see him voted out of office.
“The President said he’s very supportive of him, and so are we,” Rubio said, adding that the visit was planned as a bilateral engagement.
Orban, one of Trump’s closest allies in Europe, is viewed by parts of the American hard-right as a model for strict immigration policies and emphasis on family values and Christian conservatism. Budapest has repeatedly hosted Conservative Political Action Conference events, with another scheduled for March.
Both Fico and Orban have clashed with European Union institutions over concerns about democratic backsliding. They have also maintained ties with Moscow, criticised and at times delayed EU sanctions on Russia, and opposed sending military aid to Ukraine.
While many EU countries have shifted to alternative energy sources since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Slovakia and Hungary have continued importing Russian gas and oil, drawing criticism from Washington. Rubio said the issue would be discussed during the trip but provided no further details.
Fico has described the European Union as being in “deep crisis” and has praised Trump as a potential peacemaker in Europe, though he criticised the U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro earlier this year.
Hungary and Slovakia have raised defence spending to NATO’s minimum target of 2% of GDP, but both have diverged from Trump’s call for allies to increase military spending to 5%. Fico has ruled out further increases for now, while Hungary has budgeted for 2% defence spending this year.
On nuclear cooperation, Slovakia signed an agreement with the United States last month. Fico has said U.S.-based Westinghouse is likely to build a new nuclear power plant, while also welcoming interest from France’s nuclear engineering firm Framatome.