Trump administration has no position on Orbán's bid to lead the UN

"The United States has no position; we will continue to evaluate any and all candidates." That, in an email from a senior official to The Epoch Times, was the Trump administration's answer to the question of whether Viktor Orbán should become the next United Nations secretary-general.

The non-answer arrives after an October 25 Wall Street Journal op-ed, citing anonymous sources in three countries, reported that administration officials had encouraged the former Hungarian prime minister to enter the race to succeed António Guterres, whose second five-year term ends on December 31. Orbán lost power in Hungary's April election after sixteen years in office and has kept close ties with Trump. He does not appear on the Council on Foreign Relations' October 21 list of six candidates, which includes the International Atomic Energy Agency's Rafael Grossi, former Costa Rican vice president Rebeca Grynspan, and former Ecuadorian foreign minister María Fernanda Espinosa.

Moscow, for its part, has laid out the rules. Deputy foreign minister Alexander Alimov told Interfax on October 26 that the United States, China and Russia, as permanent members of the Security Council, cannot nominate Orbán, and that "those who are behind this initiative should probably find a state that will assume this honorable responsibility." Russia's preference, he said, is that the post go this time to a representative of Latin America or the Caribbean.

What Washington does have a position on is the job description. The official said the United States wants a secretary-general who will implement the "aggressive reform agenda" it has laid out in New York, because the UN has "wastefully strayed too far from its core missions for too long." Trump told the General Assembly in September that the reforms already include a 15 percent cut to the organisation's 2026 budget and the elimination of more than 4,000 positions, and that the UN "must stop imposing the far-left agenda of globalist bureaucrats who nobody ever elected." Guterres used his final address to urge international safeguards on artificial intelligence, a technology he said "has blindsided even those who created it."

In January, Trump said the Board of Peace he created as part of the Gaza peace process "might" end up replacing the United Nations — "with all the wars I settled, the United Nations never helped me on one war." Until it does, the administration will continue to evaluate any and all candidates.