After a flood of messages from representatives of Romania’s Jewish community and key members of Holocaust‑victim remembrance organizations, George Simion’s visit to the United States can be described as a disaster for both him and his party.
Simion’s objective was to infiltrate pro‑Russian circles in America, the only groups that welcomed him during his recent trip to the United States.
This proves mysterious, strange and unusual for a politician suspected of ties to Russian intelligence agents to travel to the United States and present himself as a staunch supporter of Donald Trump and the Republican Party.
Vladimir Putin despises America and is actively working to undermine it. He also detests liberal democracies and is spending tens of billions of dollars to dismantle their political systems.
George Simion, a deputy in the Romanian Parliament and leader of the AUR party, is barred from entering the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine and is considered a threat to the independence and security of both countries. He traveled to the United States at the end of January.
His goal was to meet Donald Trump, ideally to secure a photo‑op with the former president, and if that failed, to at least hold official conversations with members of the U.S. Administration.
During the Joe Biden administration, long before it was known whether Donald Trump would win a second presidential term, Simion was a vocal critic of U.S. Policy and publicly supported Russia’s position.
He told reporters, “…după ce am luat țara la pas de nenumărate ori și am vorbit cu zeci de mii de români: nimeni întreg la cap nu vrea să ne implicăm mai mult decât ne-am implicat în războiul din Ucraina. Deja ne-am îngropat fermierii și transportatorii, pe care i-am dus aproape de faliment, deja am donat tot ce se putea dona din punct de vedere tehnico-militar țării noastre vecine. Ce mai vor, să ne trimitem și copiii pe front ca să fie industria de armament fericită până la capăt?”, the leader of AUR said in May 2024.
“Practically, President Biden is demanding that Romania remain without anti‑aircraft defense at a time when Russia is advancing dangerously on the Ukrainian front,” Simion added in a speech delivered two years earlier.
Obstacle
In reality, all of AUR leader Simion’s political actions over time have quietly aligned with Russia’s agenda.
Simion was anti‑American during the Biden administration because of Biden’s support for Ukraine. Now he portrays himself as a great American patriot because Trump maintains a friendly relationship with Putin, whatever the nature of that relationship may be.
His objective was to infiltrate pro‑Russian circles in America—the only groups that accepted him during his latest U.S. Visit—and to actively promote Kremlin interests among American officials.
However, the chaos in the Trump administration and the rapid loss of public support for Trump made Simion’s mission much more difficult.
A major roadblock was the special relationship between Trump and Netanyahu, as well as the opposition from Holocaust‑victim organizations that label AUR as an anti‑Semitic party.
“During a parliamentary session, AUR deputies tried to attack me physically, threatened me and my family severely, surrounded me in an intimidating manner and subjected me to verbal harassment and abuse…,” deputy Silviu Vexler, a representative of Romania’s Jewish community, wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“The language used was violent, explicitly anti‑Semitic and dehumanizing — a tone that horrifyingly recalls the darkest moments of European history. I was labeled a traitor to Romania simply for defending democratic values and historical truth. At one point, an AUR deputy played a neo‑Nazi song in the parliamentary plenary hall,” the deputy added in an official letter to Rubio, a copy of which is in the possession of Spotmedia.ro.
“I was subjected to a vile anti‑Semitic lynching orchestrated by AUR members with the support of other radical deputies, a conduct that exceeded every democratic boundary,” Vexler announced in his message to the U.S. Official.
Simion, Broken Promises
The Jewish community representative also sent an official letter to Republican House leader Mike Johnson, accusing AUR of anti‑Semitism.
The messages had an effect: George Simion was not received by any senior U.S. Official. The AUR leader had no contacts with anyone in the U.S. Executive branch. He met a handful of congresspeople, but only at informal events.
“Contrary to the repeated promises Simion made in talks with the Israeli Embassy in Romania that AUR strictly implements President Trump’s anti‑anti‑Semitism policy, Sorin Lavric, a prominent AUR leader, frequently made pro‑Iron Guard and anti‑Semitic statements in parliamentary sessions,” a separate letter to Rubio noted, sent in the context of Simion’s U.S. Visit by Colette Avital, a board member of the Central Organization of Holocaust Survivors in Israel, former ambassador and diplomatic corps member.
ACCUSATIONS. Excerpt from the letter sent by deputy Silviu Vexler to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio describing George Simion’s anti‑Semitic actions and AUR representatives in the Romanian Parliament – Source: Spotmedia.ro
“Very recently, the same person insulted the memory of Elie Wiesel, denying that he was a Holocaust survivor and crudely calling the Nobel‑Prize laureate a scoundrel and an impostor, without any censure or rebuke from the AUR president,” Colette Avital added.
After the barrage of messages from Romania’s Jewish community representatives and key Holocaust‑remembrance organizations, George Simion’s U.S. Visit can be called a disaster for both him and AUR.
AUR and Greater Romania, the Securitate’s Children
The party’s association with anti‑Semitism puts it on an irreversible path that leads nowhere, certainly not to governing Romania.
The messages also serve as a warning to other Romanian parties flirting with an alliance with AUR to form a new parliamentary majority.
In the 1990s, the Greater Romania Party, launched by a hard‑line Securitate wing and nostalgic communists, followed a trajectory similar to today’s AUR. Both parties were introduced using comparable tactics, albeit in different eras.
The Tudor‑led party once achieved massive popularity, winning 20 % of the vote in the 2000 elections.
Nationalism, populism and anti‑Semitism were as widespread in Tudor’s formation as they are now in Simion’s AUR. PRM was labeled an extremist and fascist organization and isolated internationally. Today, AUR faces the same fate.
The three letters are just the tip of the iceberg. Reports about Simion’s suspected Kremlin ties and his association with Călin Georgescu, convicted for fascist and unconstitutional activities, have pushed the AUR leader into an inescapable political zone.
