Major replace after Trump ‘ended all trade to Spain’ with risk to grab bases

The Trump administration has issued an update following the US president’s threat to cut off trade with a major European power.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has said Spain “heard” Donald Trump’s message “loud and clear” and agreed over the past several hours to “cooperate” with the US military. It comes after Trump threatened to impose a full trade embargo on Spain after the NATO member refused to allow American forces to use its bases at Morón and Rotafor to strike Iran.

“Spain has been terrible,” Trump said during a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Tuesday. “We’re going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don’t want anything to do with Spain.”

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Trump also accused Spain of being a “terrible partner” in NATO for failing to increase its defence budget in line with a target of five per cent of its GDP. “It started when every European nation, at my request, made five per cent, which they should be doing. Everybody was enthusiastic – Germany, everybody – but Spain didn’t do it,” he said.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez hit back at Trump’s remarks this morning, reaffirming his opposition to war and what he called the “breakdown of international law”.

In a 10-minute televised address, the Spanish prime minister reflected on the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as the Iraq War more than 20 years ago, and said the Spanish government’s position could be summed up as “no to war”.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares has categorically denied that Spain will “cooperate” military with the US, as Leavitt claimed, according to El País.

EU internal market commissioner Stéphane Séjourné expressed his solidarity with Spain, saying earlier today: “Any threat against member state is by definition threat against the EU. This is a competence of the EU trade.

“I want to be very clear here, from this point of view, the EU’s competency on trade is actually dealt with by the Commission. If you threaten one particular country… well, that’s we’ve seen that about Greenland. I think we saw that there was a lot of unity.”