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Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez left this week’s Nato summit with a smaller defence invoice than the alliance’s different members, however Donald Trump warned the EU’s high leftwing chief that he could be made to pay in different methods.
After Sánchez’s resistance to a brand new spending goal riled many European colleagues, the US president accused Spain of looking for a “free journey” and threatened to “make them pay twice as a lot” in tariffs to the US as a part of a commerce deal.
In actuality, the US can’t hit Spain with focused tariffs as a result of it has to barter any commerce take care of the EU as an entire. However Trump’s phrases mattered extra as a sign that he had Spain in his sights and will resort to quite a lot of instruments to attempt to punish the nation.
That begs the query of whether or not Sánchez, who’s famend as a wily political survivor at residence, has miscalculated on the worldwide stage and pushed his luck too far.
“It was egocentric and it was reckless,” mentioned one European Nato diplomat. “All of us have spending difficulties, however he tried to make all of it about him.”
Different allies complained that Spain may have quietly accepted the summit declaration’s ambiguity and lengthy timelines, which in impact soften its 5 per cent of GDP spending goal, with out making a fuss.
Earlier than Trump’s feedback, the Socialist prime minister thanked allies for respecting “Spanish sovereignty” by letting him declare an specific opt-out from the 5 per cent purpose. Accepting it, he mentioned, would have been a “large mistake” costing Spain €300bn over the following decade.
The conflict in The Hague got here as Sánchez was weakened at residence by a swirl of corruption scandals, which embrace his spouse and brother in addition to two former right-hand males accused of taking kickbacks on public contracts. All deny wrongdoing.
The sense of disaster, together with mounting calls from his critics for a normal election, led to recommendations that Sánchez wished to make use of the summit to alter the topic.
That course of started when he informed Mark Rutte, Nato secretary-general, in a public letter final week that he refused to simply accept the “unreasonable” spending goal. He then introduced in an impromptu tv handle on Sunday that Rutte had accepted his position.
One conservative official mentioned Sánchez was looking for a “Zelenskyy second” with Trump, referring to the Ukrainian president’s Oval Workplace dust-up.
Michael Walsh, a senior fellow on the Overseas Coverage Analysis Institute, mentioned: “A confrontation with Trump goes to get lots of people’s consideration, and in Spain there are plenty of voters who usually are not sympathetic with Trump nor his overseas coverage.
“I feel there’s a chance that this was an intentional transfer and Sánchez knew it will blow up. He determined the chance was price taking as a result of it will distract from issues at residence.”
One Spanish official mentioned Sánchez’s crew was “unfazed” by Trump’s menace. Final week, when the prime minister despatched his letter to Rutte, Madrid had already run the numbers on potential US retaliation and concluded that the tariff menace was not grave.
Any US tariffs on items that Spain produces in important volumes, resembling iron, aluminium and automobiles, would additionally hit the EU’s different 26 member states, together with people who willingly signed as much as Trump’s 5 per cent Nato goal.
The US may as an alternative goal merchandise of which Spain is among the few producers, resembling Iberian ham and black olives, however their financial weight is proscribed.
The Spanish official mentioned that in the course of the non-public assembly of Nato leaders, Trump had not talked about Spain by title. He commented on it solely when requested at a subsequent press convention, saying its refusal to commit to five per cent by 2035 was “horrible” and merited punishment in a commerce deal.
“You already know they’re doing very effectively. The economic system is [doing] very effectively. And that economic system might be blown proper out of the water with one thing unhealthy taking place,” Trump mentioned.
By breaking ranks, Sánchez had drawn consideration to the distinction between Nato’s functionality targets — actual army gaps assessed by alliance consultants — and the 5 per cent demanded initially by Trump and usual into an official goal by Rutte.
“All of us knew that the one goal was to get by today after which take inventory. He couldn’t assist himself,” mentioned a second European Nato diplomat.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz mentioned: “We’ll undergo one other evaluation by 2029 on the newest and Spain will discover out whether or not it may maintain its guarantees with much less monetary spending.”
It’s attainable that Trump will transfer on from Spain to different issues. In January he seemed to be uncertain the place it was when he referred to as it a “Brics nation”. However there was one other interpretation of his phrases then: they had been a put-down and a warning that he noticed Spain as a bedfellow of sure enemies.
Sánchez isn’t solely at odds with the Trump administration on defence. He has examined its endurance by slamming Israel’s assault on Gaza, attacking the Silicon Valley “techno-caste” and courting President Xi Jinping in China. He’s additionally an advocate of immigration.
Because the EU’s most senior leftwing chief, he has made himself a handy image of what the Maga motion dislikes.
“I imagine Trump goes to retaliate,” mentioned Walsh. “He’s going to place super strain on the Spanish authorities to adapt to five per cent. There’s already an excellent probability this authorities may collapse due to the corruption scandals — and Trump will hope he could make that occur.”
Further reporting by Anne-Sylvaine Chassany in The Hague and Carmen Muela in Madrid
