Bilateral relationship, international challenges and transatlantic link: Sánchez’s first meeting with the US ambassador

Eduardo González The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, held his first meeting this Wednesday, June 17, with the United States Ambassador to Spain, Benjamin León, Jr., since the latter's arrival in Madrid last February. During the meeting, held at the Moncloa Complex, the Prime Minister and the Ambassador addressed “the bilateral relationship and the main international challenges,” and Pedro Sánchez reiterated “his willingness to continue working to strengthen transatlantic ties and deepen cooperation in areas of mutual interest,” according to the brief press release from Moncloa. On May 27, during a breakfast briefing in Madrid organized by Nueva Economía Fórum (his first public appearance since taking office), the US ambassador responded emphatically to a question about a possible trip by President Donald Trump to Spain: “If the president (Sánchez) hasn't received me, I don't think he's inviting the president.” Benjamín León Jr., born in 1944 in Oriente, Cuba, a resident of Miami since 1961, and a donor to the Republican Party, assumed the post at a particularly tense time in bilateral relations, primarily due to Spain's refusal to increase military spending to five percent of GDP and the Pedro Sánchez government's rejection of US attacks against Venezuela and Iran. At the same event in Madrid, Benjamín León, Jr. asserted that Trump's "frustration" with Spain stemmed from Pedro Sánchez's "commitment," along with the other NATO members, to increasing military spending to five percent, but then Spain was the "only" country that decided "not to fulfill what it said it would." "Let's not talk about subsequent events that further fueled that frustration; we all know them," he added, referring to Spain's veto of the use of the joint Rota and Morón bases for the US offensive against Iran. In any case, the ambassador insisted that the United States and Spain maintain a "deep" relationship dating back "250 years" and that Washington has "nothing against the Spanish people." "It's against the government, and I think they're right," he affirmed. At the last NATO Summit, held in The Hague almost a year ago, Sánchez distanced himself from the commitment made by the other allies (outlined in the final declaration) to invest five percent of annual GDP in defense by 2035. Sánchez himself had repeatedly warned, well before the start of the Hague meeting, that he would not accept an increase in defense spending beyond the two percent agreed upon at the 2014 Wales Summit. Since the Hague Summit, Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized and threatened Spain (with imposing “double” tariffs or expelling it from NATO, for example) for its stance on defense spending. Benjamin Leon Jr. himself assured last October, during his appearance at the Senate hearing to examine his candidacy for the Embassy in Madrid, that he will work “diligently with the Government of Spain to make them understand that it is a big mistake” not to accept the five percent and to “reverse that policy and fulfill the commitment.”

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