Second Trump reign could make life ‘a lot harder’ for EU’s far-right leaders

They celebrated his victory - but Trump’s trade tariffs and America first policies could backfire on the likes of Orbán, Meloni and Wilders

In the end Viktor Orbán didn’t, as he’d promised, celebrate Donald Trump’s win with “several bottles of champagne”. He was in Kyrgyzstan, he apologised, “where they have different traditions” – so it was vodka. But it was still a “fantastic result”.

“History has accelerated,” Orbán crowed at an EU summit in Budapest last week. “The world is going to change, and change in a quicker way than before. Obviously, it’s a great chance for Hungary to be in a close partnership and alliance with the US.”