Donald Trump has threatened to increase trade tariffs on Spain over its refusal to up its defence budget.
The US President made the remarks during a meeting with Argentine President Javier Milei at the White House on Tuesday.
Trump said he is ‘very unhappy’ with Spain, who is ‘doing very well’ economically.
‘What Spain did is a very bad thing for NATO, I think it’s very unfair to NATO,’ he noted, before saying they ‘should be punished’.
It comes days after Trump remarked that NATO should consider expelling Spain over its refusal to increase defence spending to 5% of its GDP.
‘I’m very unhappy with Spain. They’re the only country that didn’t raise their number up to 5%… so I’m not happy with Spain,’ Trump told reporters.
‘I was thinking of giving them trade punishment through tariffs because of what they did, and I think I may do that.’
Last week, Trump suggested Spain be removed from NATO for failing to meet its military spending commitments.
The remarks came during a meeting in the Oval Office with Finnish President Alexander Stubb, where the US President once again pressed European allies to ramp up defence budgets.
‘They have no excuse not to do it. But nothing happens. Maybe they should be kicked out of NATO, frankly,’ said Trump.
‘They [NATO] need to call Spain and find out why they’re falling behind – and the country’s doing well, thanks to a lot of what we’ve done.’
Trump, long critical of NATO members he sees as not pulling their weight, reminded Stubb that he has pushed for allies to spend up to 5% of GDP on defence, well above the current 2% NATO benchmark.
‘Most people didn’t think it would happen, but it passed pretty much unanimously,’ he said, referring to his push to get allies to agree to higher defence spending levels.
He then singled out Spain as the only member still significantly behind.
While Trump has previously criticised Spain’s lack of defence investment, this is the first time he has openly suggested the country could be expelled from the alliance.
Following the NATO summit earlier this year, Spain reached a compromise with Secretary General Mark Rutte, agreeing to increase its defence budget to a maximum of 2.1% of GDP in the coming years – still far from Trump’s 5% target.
Spain was also granted flexibility in how and when it reaches that figure, acknowledging domestic constraints.
There is no existing NATO mechanism to expel a member state for failing to meet spending targets.
So far, the Spanish government has not responded publicly to the president’s remarks.
Read more Spain news at the Spanish Eye.
