<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The newly inaugurated president of the United States, Donald Trump, threatened on his first day in office to impose a 100% trade tariff on Spain with the argument that “it is a BRICS nation”.</strong></h4> The president made these observations in the Oval Office during his first day of work and while signing his first executive orders surrounded by journalists, with whom he held an informal first round of questions and answers. At one point, a journalist asked him about the military spending of some NATO member states. In his response, Trump recalled that the United States is contributing 200 billion dollars more than NATO for the war in Ukraine and regretted that other countries have not reached five percent in defense spending. “It is ridiculous, because it affects them much more, we are an ocean in between,” he said. The American president even gave Spain as an example of this. “Spain is way below (five percent), and yet it is a BRICS nation,” Trump suddenly said. “Do you know what a BRICS nation is? You will find out. If the BRICS countries want to go ahead (with their idea of creating an alternative global currency to the dollar), fine, but we will impose at least a 100% tariff on business they do with the United States,” the president continued, addressing a journalist, who immediately corrected him to remind him that Spain does not belong to that multinational group. BRICS is made up of several emerging economies. Its name comes from its founding partners, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Other countries are also part of the group, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Iran and Indonesia. “España” (in Spanish) in English is called “Spain.” That circumstance, according to some journalists, would have led Trump to attribute to Spain the letter “s” of the word BRICS, which really corresponds to South Africa. Donald Trump took office on Monday as the 47th president of the United States. Following the ceremony, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez congratulated him on his return to the White House and expressed his desire to “work with the new United States Administration to strengthen the strategic relationship between our countries and address common global challenges.” For his part, Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares declared that the Spanish Government’s objective is to have “the best possible relationship with the United States” while continuing to defend its “interests and values.”
