{"id":488622,"date":"2025-10-10T15:11:33","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T15:11:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/488622\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T15:11:33","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T15:11:33","slug":"spain-rebukes-trumps-nato-expulsion-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/488622\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain rebukes Trump’s NATO expulsion threat"},"content":{"rendered":"

MADRID \u2013 Spain reaffirmed its commitment to NATO on Friday, following remarks by US President Donald Trump that the country could be expelled over its reluctance to meet defence spending targets.<\/p>\n

The 32-member alliance agreed in June to massively increase defence spending to 5% of the GDP over the next decade, under pressure of the US president. But Spanish Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez said Madrid would only raise its spending to 2.1%.<\/p>\n

Trump needs to know \u201cthat Spain is one of NATO\u2019s most serious and reliable allies,\u201d Defence Minister Margarita Robles said<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n

She then listed several of Madrid\u2019s current deployments: some 3,000 troops to defend the Alliance\u2019s eastern flank, air force deployments in Lithuania, as well as maritime deployments.<\/p>\n

The US president singled out<\/a> Spain at a press conference on Thursday as the \u201claggard\u201d among NATO members. \u201cThey have no excuse not to do this, but that\u2019s all right. Maybe you should throw them out of NATO, frankly,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n

Spain remains NATO\u2019s lowest spender, with defence outlays at just 1.43% of GDP last year. By the end of this year, according to NATO estimates<\/a>,<\/b>\u00a0the number will rise to 2%.<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez told<\/a> allies in June \u201c2.1%, no more and no less,\u201d\u00a0saying it was sufficient to meet NATO capability targets. Madrid later claimed<\/a> to have secured a concession from NATO chief Mark Rutte to apply the figure flexibly.<\/p>\n

Domestically, S\u00e1nchez\u2019s opposition has leaned into Trump\u2019s remarks and criticised the prime minister.<\/p>\n

Alberto N\u00fa\u00f1ez Feij\u00f3o, leader of the conservative opposition, said <\/a>that Spain wasn\u2019t the problem, \u201cthe problem is S\u00e1nchez.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur nation should not have to pay for his frivolity and irresponsibility,\u201d he said. \u201cSpain is a credible, proud and committed partner of NATO. And we will continue to be so.\u201d<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez\u2019s defence discourse caught in the crossfire<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tMADRID \u2013 As Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez called in Copenhagen last week for Europe to\u2026\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t4 minutes\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"S\u00e1nchez\u2019s\t\t\t<\/p>\n

(vib, cp)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MADRID \u2013 Spain reaffirmed its commitment to NATO on Friday, following remarks by US President Donald Trump that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-488622","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115350516195591338","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}