A week ago, US vice-president JD Vance travelled to Hungary to rally Viktor Orban’s supporters, an appearance that included his dialling President Donald Trump, who delivered laudatory remarks over speakerphone. This striking intervention in European politics was quickly overshadowed by intense media coverage of the vice-president’s visit to Pakistan. But the scale of Orban’s subsequent defeat, with his opponent Peter Magyar winning a supermajority, has turned the spotlight back on Vance’s visit to Budapest.

The ensuing commentary has focused on the electoral outcome, which critics have been keen to portray as a decisive repudiation of the “populist nationalism” championed by Orban and Trump. But what we really ought to ponder is the irony in the vice-president travelling to Budapest to tell Hungarians that “we want you to make a decision about your future with no outside forces telling you what to do”. This statement captures a deep tension in conservatism: It valorises national sovereignty yet feels compelled to intervene in politics abroad. It is vital to unpack this paradoxical stance because it will shape international relations in the years ahead.

Vance’s appearance in Budapest did not come out of the blue. A distinctive feature of the Trump administration has been its concerted efforts to rally like-minded parties around the world. It has, for instance, backed Javier Milei in Argentina and Nayib Bukele in El Salvador and endorsed Sanae Takaichi in Japan. These cases pale, however, beside its activism in Europe, with Trump (or his confederates such as Elon Musk and Steve Bannon) frequently expressing support for Reform in the UK, AfD in Germany, and the National Rally in France. This stance was formalised........

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