Hungary’s PM and EU’s most isolated leader says he is pursuing ‘friendship with everybody’ – particularly the former US president

Europe’s most isolated leader was beaming.

Standing in a hallway in Brussels, Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister, spoke excitedly about the politician he hopes will change his political fortunes – Donald Trump.

The longtime leader, who has been widely criticised for undermining Hungary’s democratic institutions  and cultivating ties with Moscow and Beijing, has been busy building an international far-right network of political allies, from Brazil to Austria.

His strategy, experts say, centres on the bet that nationalist and far-right forces are on the rise. And at the core of his calculus is the wager that change is coming in Washington DC.

Approached by the Guardian this month as he was rushing after a meeting with Polish and French nationalists, Orbán, who rarely speaks to independent media, stopped to defend his foreign policy choices – and cheer for Trump.