U.S. Rep. Carlos Giménez has stepped down as co-Chair of the bipartisan Congressional Friends of Spain Caucus, citing Madrid’s escalating friction with Israel.
Giménez, a Miami Republican who represents Florida’s 28th Congressional District, attributed his departure to what he called Spain’s “political posturing over moral clarity” in its dealings with the Jewish state under Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
In a Wednesday letter addressed to Sánchez, Giménez laid out several grievances. He said Spain’s government has waged an “escalating, hostile crusade” against Israel at a moment when the country “faces existential threats from Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and other terrorist organizations.”
He accused Madrid of normalizing rhetoric that “crosses the line from legitimate policy disagreement into raw antisemitism,” which he said enables movements seeking to “exterminate” Jewish people.
Giménez also decried what he called Spain’s “unprecedented and shameful decree” barring members of the Israel Defense Force (IDF) and Israel officials from entering Spanish territory.
“To bar the brave men and women of the IDF — who are fighting on the front lines against the very radical Islamic terrorism that threatens all of Western Europe — while your political apparatus simultaneously legitimizes terrorist networks and accommodationist policies, is a betrayal of Western values,” he wrote, perhaps referring to Spain’s recognition of a Palestinian state and Sánchez’s equating Israel with Russia and Iran.
“Treating democratic soldiers as personae non gratae while rewarding the architects of terror is an insult to the United States and our shared strategic interests.”
He cited Spain’s October arms embargo on Israel and its March closures of airspaces and ports to allied defense transports, arguing those steps have placed the country “firmly on the wrong side of the global fight for freedom.”
Giménez said that while he hopes Spain will eventually return to “a foreign policy rooted in the defense of Western allies and moral clarity against terrorism,” he can no longer be part of a caucus meant to celebrate America’s friendship with Spain while Madrid, in his view, undermines democratic principles.
His break with the caucus lands amid a broader deterioration in U.S.-Spain relations. President Donald Trump told reporters at a NATO summit in Ankara this week that Spain is a “wasted cause” and floated ending trade with the country.
Sánchez, meanwhile, insisted U.S.-Spain relations remain “very positive.”
Trump previously threatened Madrid over trade after Spain refused to let American aircraft use its bases during strikes on Iran and after it declined to meet NATO defense-spending targets.
Sánchez has been among Europe’s most outspoken critics of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, where deaths have topped 73,000, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between combatants and civilians.
Israel launched a war on the narrow strip of land, which abuts the Mediterranean Sea, after Hamas terrorists invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing an estimated 1,200 people and kidnapping hundreds.
Spain has also denounced a newly passed Israeli law allowing capital punishment for Palestinians convicted of deadly attacks, with Sánchez calling it an “asymmetrical measure” and “another step toward apartheid.”
Those tensions have accompanied a documented rise in antisemitic offenses in Spain, with the country’s Interior Ministry reporting an 86% jump in such cases last year.