Trump puts Spain in crosshairs over lack of support for Iran
· Toronto Sun
U.S. President Donald Trump targeted Spain on Tuesday, threatening to end trade with that country over a lack of support for the U.S. and Israeli actions on Iran and its resistance to increased NATO spending.
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“ We’re going to cut off all trade with Spain ,” Trump told reporters during an Oval Office meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. “We don’t want anything to do with Spain.”
Trump answered comments from Spain that were made a day before, when Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said his country would not allow the U.S. to use the bases in southern Spain in any strikes not covered by the United Nations’ charter. Albares added the military bases it jointly operates with the U.S. were not used in the weekend attack on Iran.
How Trump would make good on this threat remains unclear. Spain is under the umbrella of the EU, which negotiates deals on behalf of all of its 27 member nations.
The threat of tariffs and embargoes is just the latest from Trump after a Supreme Court decision that ruled against his global tariffs. Trump now maintains he can instead impose full-scale embargoes on any country he wants.
NATO laggard?
Trump also complained anew Tuesday about Spain’s decision last year to back out of NATO’s 5% defence spending target. At the time, Spain said it could reach its military capabilities by spending 2.1% of its GDP, a move that Trump criticized and responded to with tariff threats as well.
Spain, Trump said, is “the only country that in NATO would not agree to go up to 5%” in NATO spending. “I don’t think they agreed to go up to anything. They wanted to keep it at 2% and they don’t pay the 2%.”
Germany agrees with Trump, with Merz saying, “We are trying to convince them that this is a part of our common security, that we all have to comply with this.”
Spain dug in its heels on Tuesday. A spokesperson from Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s office, said the country is “a key member of NATO, fulfilling its commitments and making a significant contribution to the defence of European territory.”
Trump on Spain: ‘Great people, not great leadership’
Sanchez has been critical of the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, calling it an “unjustifiable” and “dangerous” military intervention. His government has demanded an immediate de-escalation and dialogue and also condemned Iran’s strikes across the region.
Trump said, “Spain has absolutely nothing that we need other than great people. They have great people, but they don’t have great leadership.”
Spain’s position on the use of U.S. bases in its territory marks the latest flare-up in its relationship with the Trump administration. Under Sanchez, Europe’s last major progressive leader, Spain was also an outspoken critic of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Trump not happy with U.K., either
Angered that it didn’t fully back his attack on Iran, Trump had some words for the U.K. as well, one of America’s closest allies. The U.K. decided not to join the attack on Iran that the U.S. launched with Israel.
“I’m not happy with the U.K.,” he said of Prime Minister Keir Starmer: “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.”
Starmer said that U.S. fighter jets could use two U.K. air bases for a “specific and limited defensive purpose” — one in Gloucestershire in western England and the other at the joint U.K.-U.S. Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean.
Starmer said that the United States was not authorized to use U.K. bases in Cyprus, one of which was struck by an Iranian-made drone.
“It’s taken three, four days for us to work out where we can land. There would have been much more convenient landing there, as opposed to flying many extra hours,” Trump said in apparent reference to Diego Garcia.
Trump, has criticized Starmer for agreeing to return the Chagos Islands, where Diego Garcia lies and whose people were expelled by Britain, to Mauritius to lease the base.
“I will say the U.K. has been very, very uncooperative with that stupid island that they have,” said Trump.
— With files from the Associated Press, AFP