The Diplomat
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, held a conversation yesterday with the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, in the margins of the meeting of NATO foreign ministers, which is being held in Brussels, among other things, to prepare for a possible Atlantic Alliance summit before the summer with the presence of the US President, Joe Biden.
This is the first time that the two ministers have met in person, although they had already had the opportunity to speak by telephone on 16 February. At that time, Blinken expressed to González Laya the new US Administration’s desire to expand cooperation with Spain on issues such as the pandemic, the climate crisis and relations with Russia, China and Venezuela.
A note from the State Department also indicated that Blinken and González Laya discussed ways of strengthening the bilateral relationship and transatlantic relations, and added that the head of diplomacy thanked Spain for hosting US troops at the Rota and Morón de la Frontera bases.
Although nothing has come out of yesterday’s brief conversation, it is not unlikely that there was talk of the possibility of a trip by the Spanish minister to the United States as soon as possible. During this trip, they could talk about the visit to the White House that the King and Queen had arranged with Donald Trump’s previous administration for 21 April last year, which had to be cancelled due to the AIDS-19 pandemic.
The new US President, Joe Biden, has a good personal relationship with the Spanish monarch, with whom he coincided in a number of inaugurations of Latin American presidents, when he was Vice-President with Barack Obama and Don Felipe attended these events, representing Spain, as Prince of Asturias.
However, since taking office as President of the United States, Biden, who is moving at a slower pace in his contacts than his immediate predecessors, due to the attention he pays to issues related to the pandemic, has not contacted either the King or the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez.
With the former, in any case, contact would be of a more formal nature, since, although both are heads of state, Felipe VI does not have the powers of government that Biden possesses.
The more specific issues of the bilateral relationship are usually addressed with the Prime Minister. But Moncloa has so far not received any communication from the White House, despite the fact that Biden continues to increase the number of telephone conversations he has already held with leaders of other countries or multilateral organisations.
To date, according to information from the White House, since 20 January Biden has been in contact with 18 heads of state or government, as well as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
The first leaders he spoke to, in keeping with tradition, were those of neighbouring countries: the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, and the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Then the phone conversations continued with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; the Prime Minister of Iraq, Mustafa Al-Kadhimi; the King of Saudi Arabia, Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud; the President of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta; the Prime Minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen; and the President of Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei Falla.
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