DONALD Trump has called Spain a ‘loser’ in his latest outburst over Madrid’s refusal to allow US troops to use bases in Andalucia for ongoing operations in the Middle East.
The US president’s latest rant came just 48 hours after he made an unprecedented threat to cut off all trade with Spain and hinted that he would conduct operations from two jointly-operated bases located in Cadiz and Sevilla anyway, even though Spain had already exercised a veto against their use.
Trump also took the opportunity to lash out at UK prime minister Sir Keir Starmer, who has been reluctant to back ongoing US strikes on Iran.
In a conversation by phone with the New York Post, Trump said: “We have a lot of winners, but Spain is a loser and the UK has been very disappointing.”
He added: “[Spain is] very hostile to NATO. They don’t pay – they’re the only one that voted against the 5 per cent [of GDP on defence] payment, and they’re very hostile to everyone.
“Not a team player, and we’re not going to be a team player with Spain either.”
Trump’s comments came after Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez doubled down on his criticism of the White House on Wednesday morning.
“The position of the government of Spain in the face of this situation is clear and consistent, the same one we have maintained in Ukraine and Gaza,” the Spanish prime minister said in a ten-minute televised address.
“No to the collapse of an international law that protects us all, especially civilians. No to assuming that the world can only solve its problems through bombs. Let us not repeat the mistakes of the past. No to war.”
Sanchez was forced into delivering the strong rebuttal from the prime minister’s residence at La Moncloa after relations between Spain and the United States plummeted to an all-time low on Tuesday evening.
The US president praised the German chancellor Friedrich Merz and NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte at a pool spray in the White House before lashing out at Spain, who he described as a ‘terrible’ ally.
He said: “Spain, first of all, it started when every European nation at my request paid 5 per cent [of GDP on defence] which they should be doing, and everybody was enthusiastic about it, Germany, everybody, and Spain didn’t do it.
“And now Spain actually said that we can’t use their bases, and that’s alright, we don’t want to, we can use their base if we want, we can just fly in and use it.
“Nobody’s gonna tell us not to use it, but we don’t have to, but they were unfriendly and so I told them Spain has absolutely nothing that we need, other than great people, they have great people, but they don’t have great leadership.
“As you know they were the only country in NATO that would not agree to go up to 5 per cent. I don’t think they wanted to agree to go up to anything, they wanted to keep it at 2 per cent and they don’t pay the 2 per cent.
“So we’re gonna cut off all trade with Spain, we don’t want anything to do with Spain.”
Sanchez also used his speech on Wednesday morning to remind Spaniards of the early-2000s and make a jibe at Jose Maria Aznar, the former Partido Popular (PP) prime minister, who dragged Spain into the Iraq war.
He said: “The world has been here before. 23 years ago, another US administration led us into an unjust war.
“The Iraq war generated a drastic increase in terrorism and a serious migration and economic crisis. That was the gift of the Azores trio [referring to a now-infamous meeting before the war between Aznar, US president George W. Bush and UK prime minister Tony Blair]: a more insecure world and a worse life.”
“Some will say that is naive. What is naive is thinking that the solution is violence, or thinking that blind and servile followership amounts to leadership.
“We are not going to be complicit in something that is bad for the world out of fear of retaliation from anyone,” he added in a clear reference to Trump’s threats to cut off trade relations.
The Spanish premier also insisted that Spain was not alone, even though it has positioned itself the furthest away from the US of any European Union country.
He said: “We are not alone. The government stands where it must stand, with the values of the Constitution, of the EU, with the UN Charter, with peace. Millions of people around the world stand with peace and prosperity.
“No one is in favour of the ayatollahs. But the question is whether we stand on the side of international legality and peace. We repudiate the regime in Tehran, but we call for a diplomatic solution.”
Sanchez also sought to offer reassurances that the government would do its best to protect Spaniards from the economic shocks of the ongoing conflict, which is expected to lead to a spike in petrol prices and energy bills with millions of barrels of oil unable to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital narrow shipping lane between Iran and Oman.
“We are going to protect Spaniards. We are arranging evacuation mechanisms and we will protect our compatriots,” he said.
“We are studying ways to mitigate the economic impact. We have the capacity and the political will – we did it during the pandemic.”
The collapse in diplomatic relations came after US military planes were forced to leave Andalucia over the weekend after the Spanish government blocked the use of its bases for strikes on Iran.
Flight tracking websites showed fifteen US aircraft departing Rota and Moron in southern Spain after foreign minister Jose Manuel Albares said that the bases could not be used for ongoing military operations in the Middle East.
Rota and Moron, in Cadiz and Sevilla respectively, are jointly operated with the US, but fall under Spain’s sovereignty.
The development came after senior officials, including Albares and prime minister Sanchez, decried the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, which have led to the death of the supreme leader, as ‘unjustified’ and ‘dangerous’.
Speaking at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Sunday, Sanchez called for an ‘immediate de-escalation’ after branding the attack ‘unilateral’ and ‘against international law’.
“It is possible to be against a hateful regime, as Spanish society as a whole is against the Iranian regime, and at the same time be against an unjustified, dangerous military intervention that is outside international law,” Sanchez said.
The remarks came after strikes by US-Israeli forces on Saturday killed Iran’s longtime ruler, Ayatollah Khamenei.
The conflict quickly spilled over into neighbouring countries in the Middle East, with retaliatory strikes from Tehran targeting Israel, Oman, Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain, Jordan and Cyprus.
Spain was joined by a handful of EU countries – including Ireland, Sweden, Denmark and Slovenia – in criticising the war, while France, Italy and Germany publicly backed military action against Iran.
On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested that Spain had agreed to cooperate with the US military over ongoing operations in the Middle East.
But that claim was ‘categorically’ denied by the foreign minister in a radio interview.
“The Spanish government’s position on the war in the Middle East, the bombings in Iran, and the use of our bases has not changed one iota,” Albares told Cadena SER.
He added: “There is a bilateral agreement, and outside the framework of that bilateral agreement there will be no use of Spanish sovereign bases.
“Any operation must take place within the framework of the United Nations.”
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