Trump’s Iran war widens rift with European nationalists once viewed as MAGA allies

When President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year, he was eager to pick up where he left off by strengthening ties with Europe’s right wing. But now many of those same factions are expressing open revulsion at the Iran war, rupturing relationships that were supposed to usher in a new international order.

Although Vice President JD Vance campaigned for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban this week, such a display has become the exception rather than the rule among conservatives and far-right leaders in Europe.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni refused to let the United States use an air base in Sicily to launch attacks on Iran. France’s National Rally leader Marine Le Pen described his war goals as “erratic.” And the head of Germany’s Alternative for Germany party called for American troops to leave their bases in the country.

Even with a fragile ceasefire in place with Iran, Trump’s support for Orban may not work out for the autocratic Hungarian leader, who faces a tough election this weekend. He’s long been an icon for the global right and many American conservatives who have hoped the Trump administration could replicate the Hungarian leader’s effort to choke off immigration and restructure government to ensure his Fidesz party stays in power.

That longstanding connection could insulate Orban from some of the anti-Trump blowback rattling the rest of Europe, but that’s not guaranteed, said Charles Kupchan, a professor of international relations at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.