Donald Trump declares US ‘ending all commerce to Spain’ with risk to grab NATO bases

Donald Trump has threatened to cut off trade with a major European power.

Trump railed against Spain at a press conference this afternoon during a briefing to journalists at the White House. “We’re going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don’t want anything to do with Spain,” the US president said.

Trump said the United States would cut off all trade with Spain after the European country refused to let the US military use its bases for missions linked to strikes on Iran.

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“Spain has been terrible,” Trump told reporters during a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, adding that he had told Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to “cut off all dealings” with Spain.

At the same press conference, Trump took the opportunity to share is displeasure with Britain as well, following wrangling over the use of the UK’s airbase on Diego Garcia for US strikes against Iran.

Referring to the UK’s Chagos Islands deal, he says: “That island that you read about, the lease, for whatever reason, he made a lease of the island, somebody came and took it away from him.

“And it’s taken three, four days for us to work out where we can land, it would have been much more convenient landing there as opposed to flying many extra hours.

“So we are very surprised. This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with,” he said of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Starmer refused to let the United States use the Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean, and RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, for those strikes, saying “we all remember the mistakes of Iraq“.

“President Trump has expressed his disagreement with our decision not to get involved in the initial strikes, but it is my duty to judge what is in Britain’s national interest,” he told MPs.

However the Prime Minister has since confirmed the deployment of a Royal Navy Destroyer and anti-drone helicopters, amid news that RAF F-35 fighter jets have shot down Iranian drones over Jordan.

Starmer said that the situation changed on Sunday when Iran’s attacks on targets across the Middle East became “a threat to our people, our interests and our allies.”