“Prices don’t rise, they are raised,” Mr. Orban thundered, blaming inflation on grocery stores, the biggest of which in Hungary are foreign companies like Britain’s Tesco and Austria’s Spar.

Hungary has been hailed by many American conservatives (and President Trump) as a beacon for how a country should be run. But the move by Mr. Orban underlines how he has struggled to manage the thing many Hungarians care about most: their country’s ailing economy.

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