PM Orbán: EU-US tariff war ‘will not deter’ govt from tax cuts
“The tariff war will not stop us from completing the largest European tax cut programme,” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in a video on Facebook on Tuesday.
Noting that parliament debated the tax cut scheme earlier on Tuesday, Orbán said: “We are introducing life-long PIT exemption for mothers with two or three children.”
He said the government convened a cabinet meeting to review the “effects of the recently started tariff war on the plans. “Hungary is prepared for all eventualities, and we will not allow the tariff war to deter us from the tax cuts.
As we wrote yesterday, U.S. tariffs on Hungary cite corruption concerns, straining ties despite Orbán-Trump alliance, details HERE.
Hungarian government calls out Brussels for failing to reach a beneficial solution on Trump tariffs
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Tuesday that Hungary had encouraged the European Union to negotiate on United States tariffs, but Brussels had failed to take the lead.
Szijjártó said Hungary had proposed the EU reduce its tariff on US vehicles from 10pc to 2.5pc, level with the US tariff on vehicles manufactured in Europe, but decision makers in Brussels had failed to act. “Regrettably enough, these kinds of challenging times show very clearly that the institutions in Brussels are not able to lead. They are not able to come to solutions that would benefit the European Union,” he said.
Szijjártó acknowledged that the matter of tariffs was a community competence in the EU, but said Hungary had been holding talks with the US for a couple of months about a special bilateral cooperation. “We are negotiating about a bilateral cooperation framework which includes economic elements as well,” he said.
Fielding a question about Chinese investment in Hungary, Szijjártó said China was now a “top investor” there, ploughing EUR 17bn into the country, mostly in the automotive industry. He added that Chinese investors had never “confused any political issue with” or had any “political expectations” tied to the investments. Hungary is following a strategy of “economic neutrality”, which means the country is open to investments from the East as well as the West, he said. He added that Chinese companies with manufacturing bases in Hungary were supplying German car makers there.
Addressing Hungary’s energy cooperation with Russia, Szijjártó said it was “not for political reasons” but because of “physics and infrastructure”. While neighbouring countries had failed to make energy infrastructure investments, he said nobody had given Hungary a “more reliable and cheaper” energy offer than Russia. He said the EU’s sanctions policy had “failed”.
He said President Trump and his team were “committed” to making peace and said the risk of escalation had decreased because of negotiations on the war in Ukraine. That is “good news” for Hungary, he added.