{"id":683947,"date":"2026-01-09T07:09:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T07:09:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/683947\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T07:09:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T07:09:13","slug":"why-spains-prime-minister-has-broken-ranks-in-europe-and-dared-to-confront-trump-maria-ramirez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/683947\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Spain\u2019s prime minister has broken ranks in Europe \u2013 and dared to confront Trump | Mar\u00eda Ram\u00edrez"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spain\u2019s prime minister, Pedro S\u00e1nchez, rarely utters the words \u201cDonald Trump\u201d in public. Since the US president took office, S\u00e1nchez has typically referred to the US administration and its president without explicitly naming him. This was initially interpreted as a calculation designed to avoid personal confrontation<\/a>, but even without using Trump\u2019s name, S\u00e1nchez has managed to deliver harsher criticism of the US president\u2019s aggression than any of his fellow European leaders.<\/p>\n

This week, S\u00e1nchez did not wait for a joint EU statement to issue judgment on the US\u2019s illegal military intervention to capture the Venezuelan president, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro: he swiftly joined Latin American countries<\/a> in condemning it. A few hours later he went even further, saying the operation<\/a> in Caracas represented \u201ca terrible precedent and a very dangerous one [which] reminds us of past aggressions, and pushes the world toward a future of uncertainty and insecurity, similar to what we already experienced after other invasions driven by the thirst for oil\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sanchez was speaking in Paris on Tuesday after a meeting of the \u201ccoalition of the willing<\/a>\u201d for Ukraine. Indeed, he made the case that on Venezuela, Ukraine and Gaza he was applying the same reasoning in defence of an international order \u201cbased on the observance of fair rules, not on the law of the jungle\u201d.<\/p>\n

He also pushed back against US sabre-rattling over Greenland: \u201cSpain, believing in peace, diplomacy and the United Nations, cannot, of course, accept this, just as we cannot accept the explicit threat to the territorial integrity of a European state, as is the case with Denmark.\u201d<\/p>\n

If S\u00e1nchez is sounding more outraged than other European leaders, even progressive ones, then one reason is the influence of Spain\u2019s far-left parties, including Sumar, the junior party in his governing coalition. But he is also drawing on broad social and even political consensus in Spain<\/a> on many of these international issues.<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez\u2019s messaging on foreign policy is popular in Spain, a country where confidence in Trump is among the lowest in the world<\/a> and where there is widespread support, in particular, for the rights of Palestinians<\/a> and Ukrainians<\/a>. Even before this latest crisis, Venezuela was part of the national debate in Spain. About 600,000 Venezuelans<\/a> live in Spain, and Spanish politicians attack each other<\/a> over their past positions <\/strong>and connections to the country. In Madrid, home to more than 200,000 Venezuelans<\/a>, conversations about Caracas are commonplace everywhere, from classrooms to coffee queues.<\/p>\n

Politicians of Venezuela\u2019s opposition, including its leader, Edmundo Gonz\u00e1lez, now live as refugees in Spain. There is a broad agreement across the Spanish political class about condemning the Maduro regime, but also questioning the legitimacy of US actions, even among the leadership of the conservative Popular party (PP).<\/p>\n

Some hawkish PP voices, particularly the regional president of Madrid, Isabel D\u00edaz Ayuso, often invoke \u201cChavismo\u201d<\/a> to attack S\u00e1nchez\u2019s government, suggesting it has connections with the Venezuelan regime, even though it refused to recognise Maduro as the legitimate president after the 2024 election and officials have described Venezuela as a dictatorship<\/a>. It is D\u00edaz Ayuso, however, who stands out in Spain for remaining less critical of Trump. Even the PP-founded thinktank FAES<\/a>, led by the former conservative prime minister Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Aznar, criticised US \u201ccolonialism\u201d and its marginalisation of the Venezuelan opposition figure Mar\u00eda Corina Machado.<\/p>\n

Will Sanchez\u2019s condemnation jeopardise Spain\u2019s relationship with the US \u2013 the fear motivating other European leaders to keep silent \u2013 or indeed have any impact on Trump? So far, it seems barely to have registered with the White House, but Trump has previously suggested that Spain should be expelled from Nato<\/a> after it resisted his demands for increasing military spending. In October, Trump hinted <\/a>at punishment with extra tariffs mentioning<\/a> that the Spanish economy was doing \u201cvery well, and that economy could be blown right out of the water with something bad happening\u201d. No such punishment has yet materialised.<\/p>\n

Yet, as with its handling of Gaza and Ukraine, the Spanish government is often better at words and gestures than meaningful actions, and too often tends to think about international crises in terms of domestic political gain.<\/p>\n

Madrid has offered to mediate in the crisis in Venezuela, partly with the interests of big Spanish companies in mind, particularly the oil company Repsol and the telecommunications conglomerate Telef\u00f3nica. Five Spanish prisoners <\/a>were among a group of political detainees released in from jail in Caracas on Thursday, a move welcomed by S\u00e1nchez as an \u201cact of justice\u201d.<\/p>\n

This year is likely to be a difficult one for S\u00e1nchez\u2019s Socialist party, with polls forecasting setbacks in upcoming regional elections. The prime minister\u2019s popularity has been eroded by corruption scandals<\/a> involving close allies and a series of sexual harassment allegations<\/a> about officials in his party.<\/p>\n

For S\u00e1nchez, talking about difficult global issues may offer useful respite from his mounting domestic challenges. And his consistently smooth and outspoken manner does not just go down well in the global south \u2013 most Spaniards agree with him on the fundamentals of Trump, Ukraine and Gaza. S\u00e1nchez\u2019s criticism of Trump may be less risky than it first appears \u2013 but he is still being bold in articulating what many other European leaders think, but dare not say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spain\u2019s prime minister, Pedro S\u00e1nchez, rarely utters the words \u201cDonald Trump\u201d in public. Since the US president took…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":683948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187],"class_list":{"0":"post-683947","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115863890379068203","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683947","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=683947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}