By JUSTIN SPIKE

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary’s populist prime minister has spent years building a close political relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump and aligning himself with the MAGA movement.

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But despite Viktor Orbán’s success in gaining favor with the culturally conservative and nationalist wing of Trump’s administration, his country is poised to be among those hard hit by Trump’s tariffs against the European Union.

Trump earlier this month announced he would levy tariffs of 30% against Mexico and the EU beginning Aug. 1 — a move that could cause massive upheaval between the United States and the 27-member EU, of which Hungary is a member.

As a small, export-oriented economy with major automobile, pharmaceutical and wine industries — some of the main categories of products Europe exports to the U.S. — Hungary will be particularly vulnerable to Trump’s tariffs.

The duties “would put the Hungarian economy in a very, very difficult situation, because then the entire possibility for Hungary to export to America would be essentially eliminated,” Péter Virovácz, chief analyst at ING Hungary, told The Associated Press.

‘Not the best way to make money’

Hungary’s largest trading partners are other EU countries like Germany, Italy and Romania, as well as China, but many Hungarian companies export their goods across the Atlantic. Outgoing trade to the United States represents around 15% of all Hungarian exports to countries outside the EU.

One such enterprise, a Budapest-based company specializing in Hungarian wine, said it will likely cease doing business in the U.S. altogether if the 30% duty is levied on its products.

“If it’s really going to be 30%, then there is no more shipment … We might just call it a day at the end of the year,” said Gábor Bánfalvi, co-owner of Taste Hungary.

Bánfalvi’s company has been shipping around 10,000 bottles of premium Hungarian wine per year to the U.S. for about half a decade. With a base in Washington D.C., it exports a range of red and white wines to clients in numerous U.S. states including specialty wine shops and bars.

Until now, “it’s been a thin profit margin, but it’s been fine because we want Hungarian wine to be available” to U.S. consumers, Bánfalvi said.

“Then came 2025,” he said.

When Trump began imposing tariffs on EU exports earlier this year, the cost of Taste Hungary’s shipments tripled, Bánfalvi said — price hikes he had to build into the sticker price of the wine. The imposition of 30% tariffs would make exporting “unsustainable.”

“You just start to think, why are we doing this? Is it really worth it? It’s just not the best way to make money,” he said.

In total, the value of EU-U.S. trade in goods and services in 2024 amounted to 1.7 trillion euros ($2 trillion.)

Doubts that political ties could soften the blow

Hungary’s government, a vocal proponent of Trump’s “patriotic” foreign policy prioritizing national interests, has acknowledged that the tariffs would present a challenge. But, careful not to criticize the Trump administration, it has instead blamed the EU, a frequent target of Orbán’s scorn, for failing to reach a comprehensive trade agreement with Washington.

Confident that his right-wing populist policies would help win him favor with Trump’s administration, Orbán said in an interview in April that while tariffs “will be a disadvantage,” his government was negotiating “other economic agreements and issues that will offset them.”

But Péter Krekó, director of the Budapest-based Political Capital think tank, expressed doubt that political affinities could play a meaningful role in mitigating damage to Hungary’s economy caused by Trump’s trade policy.

“The unquestionably good bilateral relations simply cannot compensate for the trade conflicts between the EU and the U.S., and as a consequence, Hungary will suffer the tariffs the same way that the EU will,” Krekó said. “Mutual nationalisms cannot be coordinated in a way that it is going to be a win-win situation.”

Car manufacturing and pharmaceuticals

Virovácz, the economist, pointed out that Hungary is home to numerous automobile factories for major automakers like Audi and Mercedes. The manufacturing of cars and motor vehicle parts represents an “overwhelming majority” of the country’s total exports, he said.

FILE – Robotic arms operate in a welding hall of the Suzuki manufacturing plant in Esztergom, northern Hungary, Oct. 19, 2022. (Zsolt Szigetvary/MTI via AP, File)

Pharmaceuticals make up an even larger share of Hungarian exports to the United States — an industry on which Trump this month threatened to impose 200% tariffs. That “will essentially kill European and thus Hungarian exports to America,” Virovácz said.

“It’s impossible for tariffs to be levied on EU products but not on Hungarian ones,” he said. “A theoretical option is that Trump could somehow compensate Hungary because he’s on good terms with the Hungarian political leadership, but if that only starts happening now, it’s way too late.”

Krekó, the political analyst, said Trump’s administration “gives practically nothing for free. If Hungary … cannot fulfill the interests of the U.S., then I think Hungary is not going to receive gifts.”

“Hungary just doesn’t have the cards, to use Trump’s terminology,” he added.

By SAM McNEIL and KEN MORITSUGU

BEIJING (AP) — China and the European Union have issued a joint call to action on climate change during an otherwise tense bilateral summit in Beijing on Thursday riven with major disagreements over trade and the war in Ukraine.

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The two economic juggernauts issued a joint statement on climate change, urging more emission cuts and greater use of green technology and affirming their support for the Paris Climate Agreement as well as calling for strong action at the upcoming COP30 climate summit in Brazil.

“In the fluid and turbulent international situation today, it is crucial that all countries, notably the major economies, maintain policy continuity and stability and step up efforts to address climate change,” the joint statement said.

Their climate agreement was a silver lining on a stormy day where European leaders demanded a more balanced relationship with China in talks with President Xi Jinping.

They highlighted trade in their opening remarks, calling for concrete progress to address Europe’s yawning trade deficit with China.

“As our cooperation has deepened, so have the imbalances,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. “We have reached an inflection point. Rebalancing our bilateral relation is essential. Because to be sustainable, relations need to be mutually beneficial.”

Little movement expected

Expectations were low ahead of the talks, initially supposed to last two days but scaled back to one. They come amid financial uncertainty around the world, wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, and the threat of U.S. tariffs. Neither the EU nor China is likely to budge on key issues.

European Council President António Costa called on China to use its influence over Russia to bring an end to the war in Ukraine — a long-running plea from European leaders that is likely to fall again on deaf ears.

Xi called for deeper cooperation between China and Europe to provide stability in an increasingly complex world. Both sides should set aside differences and seek common ground, he said, a phrase he often uses in relationships like the one with the EU.

China is willing to strengthen coordination on climate and make greater contributions to addressing climate change, he said, but he pushed back against EU restrictions on Chinese exports.

“We hope the EU will keep its trade and investment markets open, refrain from using restrictive economic and trade tools and provide a good business environment for Chinese companies to invest and develop in Europe,” he said, according to a readout posted online by state broadcaster CCTV.

US tariff threats weigh on EU-China cooperation

Besides trade and the Ukraine war, von der Leyen and Costa were expected to raise concerns about Chinese cyberattacks and espionage, its restrictions on the export of rare earth minerals and its human rights record in Tibet, Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

The EU, meanwhile, has concerns about a looming trade battle with the United States.

“Europe is being very careful not to antagonize President Trump even further by looking maybe too close to China, so all of that doesn’t make this summit easier,” said Fabian Zuleeg, chief economist of the European Policy Center. “It will be very hard to achieve something concrete.”

China’s stance has hardened on the EU, despite a few olive branches, like the suspension of sanctions on European lawmakers who criticized Beijing’s human rights record in Xinjiang province, where it is accused of a widespread campaign of repression against the Uyghurs.

The summit ended with almost no movement on the major issues of trade, electric vehicles, or Russia, said Noah Barkin, an analyst at the Rhodium Group think tank. Rather, frustration from the EU was glaringly obvious “after years in which its concerns have been largely ignored by Beijing.”

He said the Europeans will likely use more “trade defense tools in the months ahead, including a debate over expanding safeguards and new cases under the bloc’s foreign subsidies regulation.”

Trade disputes range from rare earths to EVs

Like the U.S., the 27-nation EU bloc runs a massive trade deficit with China — around 300 billion euros ($350 billion) last year. It relies heavily on China for critical minerals and the magnets made from them for cars and appliances. When China curtailed the export of those products in response to Trump’s tariffs, European automakers cried foul.

China agreed during the summit to to start “an upgraded export supply mechanism” to fast-track exports of critical minerals, von der Leyen said. Details of the arrangement were not immediately made public. Barkin said he doubted the mechanism would be “a miracle solution for what may become a go-to coercion tool for Beijing in the years ahead.”

The EU has imposed tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles to support its carmakers by balancing out Beijing’s heavy auto subsidies. China would like those tariffs revoked.

The rapid growth in China’s market share in Europe has sparked concern that Chinese cars will eventually threaten the EU’s ability to produce its own green technology to combat climate change. Business groups and unions also fear that the jobs of 2.5 million auto industry workers could be put in jeopardy, as well those of 10.3 million more people whose employment depends indirectly on EV production.

China has launched investigations into European pork and dairy products, and placed tariffs on French cognac and armagnac. It has criticized new EU regulations of medical equipment sales and fears upcoming legislation that could further target Chinese industries, said Alicia García-Herrero, a China analyst at the Bruegel think tank.

The EU has leverage because China needs to sell goods to the bloc, García-Herrero said. “The EU remains China’s largest export market, so China has every intention to keep it this way, especially given the pressure coming from the U.S.,” she said.

China bristles at EU sanctions over Russia’s war against Ukraine. The latest package included two Chinese banks that the EU accused of links to Russia’s war industry.

China’s Commerce Ministry protested the listing and vowed to respond with “necessary measures to resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises and financial institutions.”

The EU looks beyond Beijing and Washington

Buffeted between a combative Washington and a hardline Beijing, the EU has more publicly sought new alliances elsewhere, inking a trade pact with Indonesia and drafting trade deals with South America and Mexico.

Costa and von der Leyen visited Tokyo the day before their meetings in Beijing, launching an alliance with Japan to boost economic cooperation, defend free trade and counter unfair trade practices.

“Both Europe and Japan see a world around us where protectionist instincts grow, weaknesses get weaponized, and every dependency exploited,” von der Leyen said. So it is normal that two like-minded partners come together to make each other stronger.”

McNeil reported from Brussels. Mark Carlson in Brussels and Olivia Zhang in Beijing contributed to this report.

By MIKE SCHNEIDER

The data nerds are fighting back.

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After watching data sets be altered or disappear from U.S. government websites in unprecedented ways after President Donald Trump began his second term, an army of outside statisticians, demographers and computer scientists have joined forces to capture, preserve and share data sets, sometimes clandestinely.

Their goal is to make sure they are available in the future, believing that democracy suffers when policymakers don’t have reliable data and that national statistics should be above partisan politics.

“There are such smart, passionate people who care deeply about not only the Census Bureau, but all the statistical agencies, and ensuring the integrity of the statistical system. And that gives me hope, even during these challenging times,” Mary Jo Mitchell, director of government and public affairs for the research nonprofit the Population Association of America, said this week during an online public data-users conference.

The threats to the U.S. data infrastructure since January have come not only from the disappearance or modification of data related to gender, sexual orientation, health, climate change and diversity, among other topics, but also from job cuts of workers and contractors who had been guardians of restricted-access data at statistical agencies, the data experts said.

“There are trillions of bytes of data files, and I can’t even imagine how many public dollars were spent to collect those data. … But right now, they’re sitting someplace that is inaccessible because there are no staff to appropriately manage those data,” Jennifer Park, a study director for the Committee on National Statistics, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, said during the conference hosted by the Association of Public Data Users (APDU).

‘Gender’ switched to ‘sex’

In February, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s official public portal for health data, data.cdc.gov, was taken down entirely but subsequently went back up. Around the same time, when a query was made to access certain public data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s most comprehensive survey of American life, users for several days got a response that said the area was “unavailable due to maintenance” before access was restored.

Researchers Janet Freilich and Aaron Kesselheim examined 232 federal public health data sets that had been modified in the first quarter of this year and found that almost half had been “substantially altered,” with the majority having the word “gender” switched to “sex,” they wrote this month in The Lancet medical journal.

One of the most difficult tasks has been figuring out what’s been changed since many of the alterations weren’t recorded in documentation.

Beth Jarosz, senior program director at the Population Reference Bureau, thought she was in good shape since she had previously downloaded data she needed from the National Survey of Children’s Health for a February conference where she was speaking, even though the data had become unavailable. But then she realized she had failed to download the questionnaire and later discovered that a question about discrimination based on gender or sexual identity had been removed.

“It’s the one thing my team didn’t have,” Jarosz said at this week’s APDU conference. “And they edited the questionnaire document, which should have been a historical record.”

Among the groups that have formed this year to collect and preserve the federal data are the Federation of American Scientists’ dataindex.com, which monitors changes to federal data sets; the University of Chicago Library’s Data Mirror website, which backs up and hosts at-risk data sets; the Data Rescue Project, which serves as a clearinghouse for data rescue-related efforts; and the Federal Data Forum, which shares information about what federal statistics have gone missing or been modified — a job also being done by the American Statistical Association.

The outside data warriors also are quietly reaching out to workers at statistical agencies and urging them to back up any data that is restricted from the public.

“You can’t trust that this data is going to be here tomorrow,” said Lena Bohman, a founding member of the Data Rescue Project.

Experts’ committee unofficially revived

Separately, a group of outside experts has unofficially revived a long-running U.S. Census Bureau advisory committee that was killed by the Trump administration in March.

Census Bureau officials won’t be attending the Census Scientific Advisory Committee meeting in September, since the Commerce Department, which oversees the agency, eliminated it. But the advisory committee will forward its recommendations to the bureau, and demographer Allison Plyer said she has heard that some agency officials are excited by the committee’s re-emergence, even if it’s outside official channels.

“We will send them recommendations but we don’t expect them to respond since that would be frowned upon,” said Plyer, chief demographer at The Data Center in New Orleans. “They just aren’t getting any outside expertise … and they want expertise, which is understandable from nerds.”

Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social

By MICHELLE L. PRICE

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said Thursday the U.S. is cutting short Gaza ceasefire talks and bringing home its negotiating team from Qatar for consultations after the latest response from Hamas “shows a lack of desire to reach a ceasefire in Gaza.”

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“While the mediators have made a great effort, Hamas does not appear to be coordinated or acting in good faith,” Witkoff said in a statement. “We will now consider alternative options to bring the hostages home and try to create a more stable environment for the people of Gaza.”

It was unclear what “alternative options” the U.S. was considering. The White House had no immediate comment, and the State Department did not immediately respond to messages.

A breakthrough in talks on a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas has eluded Trump’s administration for months as conditions worsen in Gaza. The territory recently had its deadliest day yet for aid-seekers in over 21 months of war, with at least 85 Palestinians killed while trying to reach food Sunday.

The sides have held weeks of talks in Qatar, reporting small signs of progress but no major breakthroughs. Officials have said a main sticking point is the redeployment of Israeli troops after any ceasefire takes place.

White House special envoy Steve Witkoff, from right, Donald Trump Jr., and Bettina Anderson watch as President Donald Trump arrives at Teterboro Airport in Teterboro, N.J., en route to attend the Club World Cup final soccer match, Sunday, July 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Witkoff said the U.S. is “resolute” in seeking an end to the conflict in Gaza and said it was “a shame that Hamas has acted in this selfish way.”

Earlier Thursday, Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu’s office recalled his country’s negotiating team back to Israel in light of Hamas’ response.

In a brief statement, the prime minister’s office expressed its appreciation for the efforts of Witkoff and mediators Qatar and Egypt, but it gave no further details.

The deal under discussion is expected to include a 60-day ceasefire in which Hamas would release 10 living hostages and the remains of 18 others in phases in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Aid supplies would be ramped up and the two sides would hold negotiations on a lasting truce.

The talks have been bogged down over competing demands for ending the war. Hamas says it will only release all hostages in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal and end to the war. Israel says it will not agree to end the war until Hamas gives up power and disarms, a condition the group rejects.

White House special envoy Steve Witkoff, right, and Jared Kushner wait for the arrival of President Donald Trump at Teterboro Airport in Teterboro, N.J., en route to attend the Club World Cup final soccer match, Sunday, July 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

It’s the latest setback for Trump as he’s tried to position himself as peacemaker and made little secret of the fact he wants to receive a Nobel Peace Prize. The Republican president also had promised to quickly negotiate an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, but little progress has been made there, either.

With the war in Gaza, Trump earlier this month met with Netanyahu at the White House, putting his weight behind a push to reach a breakthrough and a ceasefire agreement.

But despite his newly strengthened partnership with Netanyahu following their countries’ joint strikes on Iran, the Israeli leader left Washington without any announced breakthrough.

The State Department said earlier in the week that Witkoff would be traveling to the Middle East for talks, but U.S. officials later said that Witkoff would instead travel to Europe.

It was unclear if he was holding meetings there Thursday.

Associated Press writers Josef Federaman and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.