{"id":815369,"date":"2026-03-09T23:04:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T23:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/815369\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T23:04:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T23:04:16","slug":"spanish-deputy-leader-slams-merz-for-his-deference-to-trump-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/815369\/","title":{"rendered":"Spanish deputy leader slams Merz for his deference to Trump \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Merz has been under fire since clamming up during a March 3 press conference at the White House during which Trump threatened to impose an embargo on Madrid for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/madrid-bars-us-from-using-spanish-bases-to-attack-iran\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">refusing to allow U.S. military planes to use Spanish air bases<\/a> to attack Iran, and slammed Spain for its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/spain-nato-summit-5-percent-defense-spending-target-perdo-sanchez-military-donald-trump\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">refusal<\/a>\u00a0to commit 5 percent of its GDP to military spending.<\/p>\n<p>After the meeting, the chancellor claimed he hadn\u2019t spoken up to defend a fellow EU member because he hadn\u2019t wanted to risk \u201caggravating\u201d the situation by rebuking Trump in public. He added he\u2019d later told the president behind closed doors that economic sanctions <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/eu-scrambles-to-defend-spain-from-donald-trump-embargo-menace\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">can\u2019t be imposed on a single EU country<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But that spin has done little to soothe tempers in Madrid. In the hours following the Washington meeting, Spanish Foreign Minister Jos\u00e9 Luis Albares blasted Merz for failing to stand up for a fellow EU member, and said he couldn\u2019t imagine former German chancellors Angela Merkel or Olaf Scholz remaining silent in a similar situation.<\/p>\n<p>The chancellor was also pilloried in Spain\u2019s national press, with pundits labelling Merz a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lasexta.com\/programas\/al-rojo-vivo\/antonio-garcia-ferreras-visita-merz-casa-blanca-estuvo-lamentable-estuvo-cobarde-temblaron-piernas-delante-trump_2026030469a8586ee1ff634075d7f8f8.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">coward<\/a>\u201d and newspaper <a href=\"http:\/\/who was sitting next to Trump, remained impassive during the furious tirade, failing to defend a European partner as a basic sense of solidarity would have demanded. Yesterday, Spain received EU support regarding the trade threat, but not on its position regarding the war.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">editorials<\/a> scolding him for \u201cfailing to defend a European partner as a basic sense of solidarity would have demanded.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tensions? What tensions?<\/p>\n<p>Merz\u2019s spokesperson, Stefan Kornelius, downplayed the evident discord between the two countries, telling POLITICO on Monday that \u201cthe relationship is not tense at all.\u201d He also deflected criticism of Berlin\u2019s handling of the situation and said Germany\u2019s top foreign policy and security official, G\u00fcnter Sautter, had debriefed his Spanish counterpart immediately after the Trump meeting.<\/p>\n<p>But he conceded that the two leaders haven\u2019t spoken since the chancellor\u2019s visit to Washington. According to Kornelius, Merz has attempted to call S\u00e1nchez twice but failed to reach him; he added that the chancellor left the prime minister a voice message and is waiting for a call back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Merz has been under fire since clamming up during a March 3 press conference at the White House&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":815370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5310],"tags":[13402,473,32,2000,299,1945,1824,774,29135,7337,5338,104,7497,479,1201,49,31678],"class_list":["post-815369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-germany","tag-angela-merkel","tag-defense","tag-donald-trump","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-friedrich-merz","tag-germany","tag-iran","tag-johann-wadephul","tag-olaf-scholz","tag-pedro-sanchez","tag-spain","tag-strategic-autonomy","tag-tariffs","tag-trade","tag-united-states","tag-yolanda-diaz"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116201722042452144","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815369","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=815369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}