Sánchez’s message to Trump: a trade war “is not in the interest, neither for the U.S., neither for the EU”

Eduardo González The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, warned this Wednesday, in response to the threats of the new American president, Donald Trump, that a trade war “is not in the interest, neither for the U.S., neither for the European Union,” would not benefit either the US or the European Union” and assured that Spain has increased its defense spending by 70 percent in the last ten years, which makes it, “in absolute terms,” “the tenth largest contributor to NATO.” “We share a strong transatlantic bond … our economies are very interlinked and I believe a trade war is not in the interest of either party, neither for the U.S., neither for the European Union,” said Pedro Sánchez during an interview granted to Steve Sedgwick, of CNBC, within the framework of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “A trade war is a kind of zero-sum gain,” he added. “We need to focus on how do we strengthen our transatlantic relationship, which is now more important than ever,” he warned. Since his inauguration on Monday, President Donald Trump has repeated his threat to impose tariffs on EU products entering the United States and has even told reporters that the EU has been “very, very bad” to the United States and, therefore, “they will have to pay tariffs. It is the only way to get justice.” In response to these words, the European Union’s Economic Commissioner, Valdis Dombrovskis, told CNBC that “if it is necessary to defend our economic interests, we will respond in a proportionate manner.” “We are ready to defend our values and also our interests and rights if that becomes necessary,” added Dombrovskis, who assured that the Commission is talking with the United States Government to find a “pragmatic” solution to the dispute over tariffs and warned that global growth could suffer if economic relations between the two parties worsened. Regarding Trump’s accusations against European NATO countries for not spending the agreed two percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on defense expenditure (with special reference to Spain), Sánchez declared that “Spain is very committed to achieving this goal of two percent of GDP on defense expenditure.” “But let me also say you that, in the last ten years, we have also increased by 70% our total defense expenditure. If we take those figures in absolute terms, what we can say is that Spain is the tenth largest contributor to NATO,” he said. The latest NATO data estimates that Spain was the country with the lowest defense spending in 2023, with only 1.28% of GDP spent on defense. Last year, the Alliance said that Spain was not among the 23 allies that had already met the two percent target.

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