Hungarian PM Orban defends minister sanctioned by US

Sanctions imposed by the outgoing U.S. administration on Prime Minister Viktor Orban's cabinet chief Antal Rogan, who is in charge of the secret service, have only strengthened his position, Orban told state radio on Friday.

Orban defended his key aide in his first remarks on the matter since the U.S. imposed sanctions on Rogan for alleged corruption earlier this month. Orban's cabinet office has dismissed the U.S. move as the "last, petty revenge" of the outgoing American ambassador.

"(Rogan) is the minister in charge of national security services, the number one guardian of Hungarian national sovereignty and if he is punished by a big power that means he does his job well, so this is our starting point," Orban told the radio station.

The nationalist premier, a long-time supporter of President-elect Donald Trump, has said he envisages a "golden era" for U.S.-Hungarian relations under Trump's presidency.

Facing strong headwinds at home from a surging new opposition party and a struggling economy ahead of 2026 elections, Orban pledged to double down on what he called "foreign networks" threatening Hungarian sovereignty.

Orban has taken repeated aim at Hungarian-born U.S. financier George Soros and his liberal views, and says his foreign policy goal this year would be "to squeeze out the Soros empire from Europe" and first of all, Hungary.

"It is time...for us to eliminate the foreign networks that pose a threat to Hungarian national sovereignty and send them home," he said. "Hungary will likely be the first country (in Europe) to squeeze out the Soros empire, this is my definite goal for this year."

Soros and his Open Society Foundations have been a perennial target of Orban's Fidesz party over the past decade. In 2017 his government tightened regulations on foreign-funded NGOs, requiring them to register with authorities and publicly declare their foreign-funded status.

In 2018, Central European University, founded by Soros in 1991, began to move the bulk of its courses out of Hungary to Vienna following a long struggle between Soros and Orban's government.