"Spain is very bad, its people are great, but its leadership is incompetent" .. This is how US President Donald Trump spoke
Afrasianet - Mohamed Ezzat - U.S. President Donald Trump announced on July 8 that he had directed Treasury Secretary Scott Besant to cut all trade ties with Spain, calling Madrid a "bad partner" in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and Trump's remarks came during an appearance alongside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte during the alliance's summit in the Turkish capital, Ankara.
The remarks are the height of tension in U.S.-Spanish relations, which have reached their lowest levels since Trump returned to the White House early last year. The roots of these tensions go back even further.
In October 1781, the prominent British commander Charles Cornwallis was on the verge of a crushing defeat at the hands of American forces rebelling against British colonialism led by George Washington in Yorktown, Virginia.
The defeat not only stained his military history, but also opened the door to a series of historical transformations that changed the course of world history. Following that defeat, the British armies surrendered in the territories that later became known as the United States of America, opening the door to the independence of the fledgling state.
But one perennial forgotten party to the American War of Independence is Spain, which, along with France, provided supplies and ammunition to rebel American forces, especially in the decisive and recent Battle of Yorktown, causing Spanish officials to occasionally remind the world that Spain was one of the few countries to send troops to help the United States build its own nation and gain independence.
Thus, Spain's name appears in the pages of the history of the United States as a historical ally that contributed to the country's independence and founding, but the irony is that the United States does not appear in the same image in the pages of Spanish history.
Many Spaniards believe that Washington met historic Spanish aid with a lot of ingratitude and denial. They believe that their country lost its colonial possessions in the Caribbean and Pacific to the United States in the Spanish-American War (1898), and that Spain after World War II did not benefit from the Marshall Plan launched by the United States in Europe, and contributed to the development of many European countries after the war.
Moreover, the United States supported decades of fascism and dictatorship in post-World War II Spain, providing military and economic aid to Franco's authoritarian regime because it was opposed to communism in the context of the Cold War.
All of these historical reasons put America in a completely unfavorable image for large segments of the Spanish, and these historical reasons may play a role in the fact that Spanish discontent with the United States transcends the country's political spectrum.
Spain's leftist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's recent defiance of American hegemony is widely accepted on the Spanish street, despite Sánchez's low approval rating in the polls at home, and so Madrid has emerged in recent years as a belligerent partner of the United States, and then an outspoken opponent of its political behavior on the international stage, especially under the leadership of Donald Trump.
Gaza. The beginning of the public dispute
Israel's genocidal war on Gaza since October 2023 marked the beginning of the United States and Spain openly standing on opposite sides, each representing values and international orientations that have already conflicted on the ground, prompting the United States to strongly criticize Spain, and making analysts wonder about the future of defense cooperation between the two allies.
In Spain, the street has been outspoken in its condemnation of Israel's war on Gaza. According to a May 2024 study by Spain's Royal Canoe Institute, 78% of Spaniards believe that European countries should recognize a sovereign Palestinian state, which is the view of most of Spain's existing political parties. Otherwise, 37% of Spaniards surveyed go for a more radical solution, which is the establishment of a single, democratic state in which Muslims and Jews enjoy equal rights on the land of one Palestine.
The Spanish street's position on the Palestinian issue was reflected in the position of the Pedro Sánchez government in its foreign policy, as Sánchez was the first (and also the only) European leader to describe what is happening in Gaza as "genocide," and Spain joined South Africa's lawsuit against Israel before the International Court of Justice, calling for the immediate suspension of the European Association Agreement with the Israeli occupation state.
In May 2024, Spain formally recognized Palestine as a state, along with Ireland and Norway, a decision that the occupying power said at the time represented support for "Hamas and Iranian terrorists." The decision subsequently encouraged other countries, such as France, Britain, Canada, and Australia, to take a similar step, and Sánchez considered it not only a matter of historical justice, but a prerequisite for peace. Spain's recognition of Palestine dates back to the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, in sharp contrast to the United States, which recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital during Trump's first term.
In September 2025, Spain imposed a comprehensive arms embargo on the Israeli occupation state, which included all exports of arms, dual-use technology, and military equipment. Madrid also banned ships carrying fuel for the occupation army from using Spanish ports, prevented aircraft transporting military materials to Israel from using Spanish airspace, prohibited imports from Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, and prohibited Israeli personnel involved in the genocide from entering Spain, including Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Smotrich.
Spain's Defense Minister Margarita Robles has stated that there is no longer any agreement, contract or relationship between her country's armed forces and the State of Israel, after Spain terminated military contracts with Israeli companies worth almost $1 billion. This included the cancellation of a €700 million (about $756 million) contract for the supply of Israeli Silam rocket launchers, and a €287.5 million (about $310.5 million) deal for the supply of Spike anti-tank missiles. Spain's arms embargo on Israel has angered the United States, with the State Department expressing concern about Spain's position and saying it emboldens what it calls terrorists.
Even after the war in Gaza ended (nominally), Pedro Sánchez continued to criticize Tel Aviv, attacking it after the Israeli parliament passed a law imposing the death penalty on Palestinians convicted of attacks by Israeli military courts. The crime is the same, but the punishment is different. It is another step towards apartheid. The world cannot be silent."
In March 2026, Spain decided to permanently withdraw its ambassador from Israel while keeping the embassy in Tel Aviv open to be run by the "Chargé d'Affaires", against the background of the occupying power's continued violations against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, in addition to Tel Aviv's participation in the US-Israeli war against Iran.
Sanchez thus emerges as the antithesis of US President Trump, Israel's biggest supporter. Since his first term, Trump has pursued unprecedented policies in favor of the occupying power, recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moving the US embassy there, closing the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) office in Washington, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, and emphasizing that settlements do not contradict international law.
His second term coincided with the continuation of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, which the Trump administration had supported for many months. During the war, Trump threatened that the United States would control and hold a long-term ownership of the Gaza Strip, and that it would resettle Palestinians in other areas and expel them from their original lands, before turning their land into the "Middle Eastern Riviera." Trump issued this threat after talks with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, and the Trump administration also shared the Israeli occupation In the 12-day war launched against Iran in June 2025.
Trump's support for the Israeli prime minister went so far as to demand that Israeli President Isaac Herzog issue a pardon for Netanyahu, who is facing corruption charges, stressing that Herzog should be ashamed of himself because he did not grant Netanyahu the pardon he deserved, and Trump considered that Netanyahu did a great job in the war on the Gaza Strip.
The contradiction between the two allies, the United States and Spain, on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was most pronounced, and this contradiction was evident in the handling of Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Palestine, who urged the International Criminal Court to investigate American and Israeli companies and individuals implicated in human rights abuses in Gaza. While the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Francesca Albanese, Spain honored her and awarded her the Order of Civil Merit in May The past.
How is Spain challenging America?
The disagreement over how to deal with the conflict in Palestine has been nothing but a façade for deeper differences between the two countries. Spain has been challenging U.S. dominance on many issues since Trump came to power. It began when Spain rejected in 2025 a NATO plan that obliges member states to spend 5% of their GDP on defense, a plan that came as a result of Trump's pressure.
Sánchez flouted Washington's pressure, arguing that this increase in spending is contrary to Spain's worldview and contradicts Spain's "welfare state" principle, which means that the country's political and economic system has a responsibility to protect and promote the social and economic well-being of citizens, which is contrary to expanding defense spending, because in that case it is deducted from funds allocated to social services for citizens. Sánchez increased his defiance of the United States, saying, "It has become clear that Europe alone It is the one who knows how to protect Europe," which angered the U.S. administration.
Moreover, Spain has continued to strengthen its economic ties with China, ignoring the United States' tendencies to have its allies break their strong ties with Beijing, as China recently became Spain's largest trading partner outside the European Union and its fourth largest trading partner globally, and in 2024 Spain imported goods from China worth 45 billion euros (about $48.6 billion).
Sánchez has visited China 4 times in 3 years, and signed seven agreements with it to facilitate Spanish food exports to Beijing and enhance cooperation between the two countries in the fields of science, education and culture, and Spain's 2025 External Action Strategy places China at the same level of importance as the United States, which is a fundamental shift in Spanish foreign policy. Spain's foreign policy shifts towards China have prompted harsh criticism from the current US administration, with US Treasury Secretary Scott Besant criticizing Spain's approach towards China, he said, that achieving a greater rapprochement between the EU and China would be like Spain's execution of itself.
According to the Washington Post, Sanchez dared to delve into what most European leaders are afraid to delve into, when he criticized Trump's domestic immigration policy, attacking the Trump administration's crackdown on immigrants, and comparing the Trump administration's approach to Spain, which chose to grant legal status to up to half a million migrants.
"Some leaders have chosen to go after immigrants — Trump — and deport them through illegal and cruel processes, but my government has chosen a different path: a quick and simple path to regularize their legal status," Sánchez wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times. Sanchez also said he was willing to explain the numbers and explain how immigration has boosted Spain's economy and increased social spending, and stressed that immigration in his country accounts for 25 percent GDP per capita, 10% of social security revenues, and only 1% of public spending", and that Western societies in light of the decline in population have either opening up and growth or closing and contracting.
In a radio interview, Sanchez launched a scathing attack on the US administration in English, saying, "One of the biggest mistakes that Trump and the current US administration are making is closing the border and equating immigration with crime and violence, and the truth is quite the opposite.
In Spain, for example, immigration accounts for 10% of the social security system's revenues, while it consumes only 1% of public spending," and in fact, the sharp disagreement between the approaches of the Spanish and U.S. administrations is not limited to the issue of immigration: While Trump refuses to invest in renewable energy, Sánchez has overseen a doubling of solar and wind energy production in Spain since 2019.
The most important point in the current disagreements between the United States and Spain is their perception of what the world should look like. Spain clearly sees that the United States, which previously created the international order after 1945, is the same one that is undermining it under Trump. Spain considers that undermining the world order and international institutions will not be a positive thing for the world or for the United States itself, which is why Madrid rejected Trump's invitation to join For its initiative, known as the Peace Council, it fiercely defends the United Nations system and the liberal rules that governed the world in the aftermath of World War II.
The war on Iran. Peak of the conflict
"Twenty-three years ago, a U.S. administration plunged us into a war under the pretext of eliminating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and ensuring global security, but in fact it ignited the biggest wave of insecurity our continent has seen since the fall of the Berlin Wall." by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez
It did not take long for the United States and the Israeli occupying state to launch their war on Iran on February 28, 2026, in order to take a tough and critical stance against the war, as the Spanish Prime Minister at the time quickly announced that his country rejects unilateral military action on the part of Washington and Tel Aviv, warning that the escalation by the two countries could lead to a more hostile international order, and Sánchez continued to describe the campaign in his statements as a dangerous and non-military intervention Justified.
At a time when other European leaders have distanced themselves from criticizing the Trump administration and its decision to go to war, Spain has barred the United States from using its military bases during the war on Iran.
The dispute between the two men then reached a climax in the recent war, with Trump threatening Spain to cut off all trade with it and suspending its membership in NATO, saying that Spain "was very bad for refusing to allow Washington to use the Morón and Rota bases to launch strikes on Iran."
But Sánchez's Spain did not bow to U.S. threats, and the prime minister assured his people in a televised address that Spain would not be complicit in something bad happening in the world that was contrary to its values and interests for fear of someone's retaliation I do not. Even when the U.S. agreed to a ceasefire with Iran last April, Sanchez continued his attacking tone against Trump, saying, "We will not pay tribute to those who set the world on fire."
Spain has shown a unique challenge to the administration of US President Donald Trump on many issues, and the challenge has reached its peak in the US war on Iran, and while the conflict between the two countries has been confined to the scope of verbal threats for months, Trump's recent decisions threaten to move him into action.
This foreshadows serious consequences not only for bilateral relations, but also for the future of NATO and historical relations across both sides of the Atlantic.
