Hungary’s Orban Follows Trump’s Lead: Will Shutter Organizations Taking USAID Funding

Hungary will take legal action to shutter local non-governmental organizations and media outlets that take funding from United States agencies and other international sources, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Friday. He added the time had come to “eliminate these foreign networks.”

AP reports Orban, an consistent ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, said in statements on state radio his government was going “line by line” through organizations operating in Hungary that have received financial assistance from the United States.

He praised Trump’s decision to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), claiming such aid had been used to fund organizations that sought to “topple” his government.

“Now is the moment when these international networks have to be taken down, they have to be swept away,” Orbán said. “It is necessary to make their existence legally impossible.”

Orban further specified people who work for organizations that received USAID funding could be considered “agents,” and described Trump’s moves to dismantle the U.S. agency as like a “cleansing wind” from what he called the “Trump tornado.”

“All money coming from America should be made public, and those who receive it should have sanctions enacted against them,” Orbán said.

“You cannot accept money from abroad in order to influence Hungarian politics, and this will be legally enforced. Those involved will face legal consequences.”

As Breitbart News reported, on Monday USAID staff were instructed to stay out of the agency’s Washington headquarters.

The advice came via a notice distributed to the career bureaucrats, after Elon Musk announced Trump had agreed with him to shut the agency down.

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