Summary:<\/p>\n
\u2013 Trump orders halt to trade with Spain over NATO<\/a> spending dispute.\n<\/p>\n \u2013 Spain says economic ties with the U.S. remain strong.<\/p>\n \u2013 Trade tensions emerge during NATO summit discussions.\n<\/p>\n ANKARA\/MADRID<\/a> \u2014 U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered an immediate halt to all trade with NATO ally Spain, escalating\u00a0tensions over defense spending<\/a> and the Iran war<\/a>, despite European Union rules requiring trade negotiations to be conducted as a single bloc.\n<\/p>\n During a NATO summit in Ankara, which European leaders had hoped would cap rifts within the military alliance, Trump instead reignited the dispute with Spain, calling it a \u201cterrible partner\u201d. He also irked another NATO ally Denmark by reiterating that his country should control Greenland. Denmark promised to defend every inch of its territory.<\/p>\n This marked the second time Trump has instructed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent<\/a> to halt commerce with Spain over its refusal to commit to NATO\u2019s new defense spending target<\/a> of 5% of GDP. However, after his first such promise in March, trade between the two countries continued normally.\n<\/p>\n \u201cSpain doesn\u2019t agree to anything, and you shouldn\u2019t carry them,\u201d Trump told NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who later tried to soothe the tension by saying that Spain \u201cmade a huge step last year\u201d raising its spending to 2%, though he added that \u201cthere are still issues we have to solve\u201d.\n<\/p>\n Trump has also repeatedly expressed frustration with Spain after Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, a Socialist who leads a minority leftist government, refused to let the U.S. use its airspace or bases for the Iran war.\n<\/p>\n No trade with Spain <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to do any trade with them, alright?\u201d Trump said, turning to Bessent, who replied: \u201cYes, sir.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Trump then added, \u201cTake it immediately. Don\u2019t even talk to them. They\u2019re hopeless. They\u2019re bad people \u2026 They make so much money with us, and we\u2019re going to see that they make a lot less.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Sanchez\u2019s office said in a statement it was treating Trump\u2019s statements as \u201cbusiness<\/a> as usual\u201d and did not intend to change the \u201cexcellent\u201d relations it enjoyed with Washington.\n<\/p>\n It pointed out that Spain had a trade deficit with the U.S. and that economic ties were forged by private companies rather than governments, adding that as part of the customs and trade union, individual EU members could not be singled out.\n<\/p>\n Washington jointly operates with Madrid two key military bases in southern Spain for naval and air operations.\n<\/p>\n Asked whether Spain has contingency plans in case the U.S reduces forces or assets at the bases, Spanish officials this week said there was no indication that such a plan was underway, with investment<\/a> in both bases growing.\n<\/p>\n Punishing Spain individually would be possible but difficult, Jennifer Hillman, economic law expert and former member of the WTO\u2019s Appellate Body, said in March. She said Trump would need to declare a national emergency and provide evidence that Spain constituted a threat to U.S. national security, foreign policy<\/a> or the economy<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n Major investors enthusiastic <\/p>\n Despite Trump\u2019s trade threats, major U.S. investors have expressed enthusiasm about Spain as an investment destination.\n<\/p>\n BlackRock, the world\u2019s largest asset manager, said in its mid-year report that Spain was its \u201cpreferred country for equity exposure\u201d because of economic growth that has outpaced most developed countries.\n<\/p>\n Spain is the U.S.-based firm\u2019s main bet at a global level for the next six months, a spokesperson said. BlackRock holds \u20ac104 billion ($119 billion) worth of Spanish equities, debt, private markets and real assets, they added.\n<\/p>\n Still, net overall U.S. investment in Spain slumped by \u20ac1.9 billion in the first quarter of 2026, according to Spain\u2019s economy ministry.\n<\/p>\n Spain is the world\u2019s largest olive\u00a0oil exporter and also sells auto parts, \u200bsteel, chemicals, and wine to the United States, although analysts consider it to be less vulnerable to Trump\u2019s threats of economic reprisal than other European economies.\n<\/p>\n Spain\u2019s wine sector was already facing a tougher U.S. market before Trump\u2019s latest threats. Spanish wine exports fell by 4.3% in value and 2.6% in volume in 2025, according to Spain\u2019s wine industry group OIVE cited by consultancy ERA Group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Summary: \u2013 Trump orders halt to trade with Spain over NATO spending dispute. \u2013 Spain says economic ties…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22399,1093,4105,194,371,333,915,22481,2127,471,1219,82,22482,305,22395,11496,131,205,3910,2436,17,4760,1190,6990,210,4090],"class_list":["post-52269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-ankara","tag-business","tag-defense-spending","tag-donald-trump","tag-economy","tag-european-union","tag-foreign-policy","tag-global-markets","tag-international-trade","tag-investment","tag-iran-war","tag-madrid","tag-military-alliances","tag-nato","tag-nato-summit","tag-office","tag-oil","tag-pedro-sanchez","tag-pr","tag-scott-bessent","tag-spain","tag-spain-economy","tag-target","tag-tariffs","tag-trade","tag-u-s-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}