The Socialist prime minister has slammed the conflict as unjustified and illegal, and now his criticism has sparked the threat of a trade war from the U.S. president.
Only one EU leader has dared to directly challenge U.S. President Donald Trump over the war against Iran, calling it unjustified, dangerous and illegal: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
And Trump has certainly noticed his outspoken critic in Madrid. On Tuesday, he slammed the Spanish government as “terrible” and “unfriendly” over its decision to bar U.S. military planes from using Spanish air bases to attack Iran, before threatening to cut all trade with the EU’s fourth-biggest economy.
Sánchez’s showdown with Trump puts the Spanish Socialist in a similar position to former French President Jacques Chirac, who famously emerged as the most defiant European leader in 2003, appealing to international law and multilateralism in an attempt to corral opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
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Though they’ve recently hiked their spending. Primarily, I was just pointing out that Spain has been a consistent laggard in terms of responding and contributing to EU collective defense concerns and NATO defense guidelines in general. I’m glad that’s changing, but context and past behavior is important to consider.
I agree with him though, increasing spending is a bad idea, it’s just recreating the conditions for world wars.
OFC the US want more spending, they’re an arms dealer with a democracy attached. But the goal of any nation should be to reduce its military spending as a % of GDP, because that means spending more on it’s people.
Really what the EU should be doing is spending the same (or less) but onshoring production so they can get more “bang” for their buck AND stop funding the MiC that helps elect Trump.