WARSAW — In Budapest this week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned bluntly of security threats from Russia and China, but he did not overtly criticize the assault on liberal democracy by Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, who has systematically stripped the courts, media and academia of their independence.

And in Warsaw this week, Vice President Mike Pence spoke out against Iran, but had no harsh words for Poland, the first European Union member to face possible sanctions from the bloc for weakening democracy and the rule of law. Instead he praised Poland, still shaken by the killing of a leading opposition politician last month, as a “bastion of freedom in Central Europe.”

The trips by Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Pence made it clear that the erosion of democratic values and institutions in Eastern and Central Europe does not rank high on the Trump administration’s agenda. Just as striking, two years into President Trump’s term, is that no one was at all surprised.

“We know very well that the Trump administration is not interested in this topic,” said Roman Kuzniar, a professor at Warsaw University and a foreign policy adviser to Poland’s former President Bronislaw Komorowski. “They are coming from a different planet. From the moon. They are not a part of the global pro-democratic movement.”