On July 8 local time, US President Donald Trump, during his visit to Turkey for the NATO summit, once again harshly criticized Spain regarding defense spending. He accused Spain of not making sufficient contributions to NATO and even threatened to cut off trade relations with Spain.
Spain is a terrible partner in NATO. They don't participate in the action, and they don't pay any money. I don't want to have anything to do with Spain at all." Trump said, "Please cut off all trade with Spain, including people going back and forth.”
He continued to criticize, saying, “Don’t even talk to them. They are completely hopeless; they are all bad people.”
American Consumer News & Business Channel (CNBC) noted that this marks an increase in the tensions between Trump and Spain regarding defense spending. Currently, Spain is the only NATO member country that has not pledged to raise its defense spending to 5% of its GDP by 2035. Last year, other NATO members committed themselves to this goal.
