Trump threatens Spain again, and Sánchez talks with him “about football”

Eduardo González US President Donald Trump took advantage of his attendance at the NATO Summit in Ankara on Wednesday to once again threaten Spain with trade sanctions for its refusal to increase its defense spending to five percent. Following these statements, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez reported that he had had an “informal chat” with the US president in which they spoke mainly “about football.” Regarding the threats, he reiterated that relations between the United States and Spain are “very positive” and that trade policy “is in the hands of the EU and, therefore, it is with the European Commission that all trade agreements must be negotiated.” “I haven’t spoken with Spain. Spain is a lost cause,” Trump declared during a joint press conference with Rutte before the start of the Summit. “We don’t want to do any more trade with Spain. I’d like them to cut it off,” he continued. “Spain is a terrible partner in NATO. They don’t participate, they don’t pay.” “I want nothing to do with Spain. Cut off all trade with Spain, please, even visits,” he insisted. “They make a lot of money off us, and we’re going to see them make much less. I don’t want to do any business with them,” he reiterated. At the same press conference, Mark Rutte made a slight allusion to Spain. “They took a big step last year,” he said. “There are problems we have to solve, but Spain has reached two percent,” he added. Trump had already issued similar threats exactly one year ago, after the NATO Summit in The Hague, when he asserted that he would make Spain pay “double” tariffs because of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s decision to break with the obligation to allocate five percent of GDP to defense spending, thereby contravening the text of the Summit’s final declaration. At the press conference following the Summit, Pedro Sánchez explained that he had had “an informal chat with the President of the United States” in which they had both “talked about soccer, about the World Cup in the United States.” “Therefore, “It was an informal, conversational chat, in which there was absolutely no tension,” he assured. “On the contrary, it was all kind words and friendliness,” and the conversation unfolded “with absolute and total cordiality,” he added. Regarding Trump's statements, Sánchez affirmed that the government has taken them “calmly, patiently, and with a certain degree of normalcy,” because “relations between the United States and Spain are very, very positive socially, culturally, economically, and politically.” “When we talk specifically about trade, I have always said, and you have heard me say it repeatedly, because it is not the first time we have been the target of this type of criticism, that Spain has a trade deficit with the United States,” he emphasized. Furthermore, he continued, “as the European Commission itself has reminded us today, trade policy is a common policy, a policy that is in the hands of the EU institutions, which, incidentally, have already publicly reiterated the characteristics of that trade policy.” “Therefore, we are a trading bloc, and it is with the European Commission that we act.” "This is the country with whom all trade agreements must be negotiated, including tariffs or duties that the US administration has previously imposed on the European Union," he warned.

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