United States President Donald Trump has said the country will make Spain pay double in its ongoing trade talks after Madrid rejected the new NATO defense spending target of 5% of GDP. The threat came hours after NATO leaders agreed to an increase that Trump had pushed for. Spain, on the other hand, publicly refused to meet the target, saying it could fulfill its obligation without crossing the 5% line.
“I think their decision is very terrible,” Trump said. “We’re negotiating with Spain on a trade deal. We’re going to make them pay twice as much.” The statement, reported by Reuters, caused concerns because EU members including Spain do not make individual trade deals with the United States.
The European Commission handles those negotiations, representing all 27 member states. It means if Trump wants to carry out this punishment, he’d need to insert that language into a broader agreement with the entire European Union—something that would likely face major opposition.
Donald Trump defends himself at NATO
While speaking about Spain’s refusal, Trump spent a better part of the summit praising his impact on the alliance. “They said, ‘You did it, sir, you did it,’” Trump said. “Well, I don’t know if I did it, but I think I did.” When asked about NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte calling him “daddy,” Trump said it was “very affectionately.”
This summit was also calmer than the ones Donald Trump attended in his first term. Back then, meetings were tense, with European leaders uncertain about his loyalty to NATO’s collective defense clause. But on Wednesday, Trump said he no longer believed the alliance was a scam. “I left here differently,” he said. “I left here saying that these people really love their countries. It’s not a rip off, and we’re here to help them protect their country.”
Still, not everyone was pleased with everything that happened at the summit. After the summit, French President Emmanuel Macron called out Trump’s trade threats. “We cannot, among allies, say that we must spend more…and wage a trade war,” Macron said. He added, “It is very important that we can return to what should be the rule within a group of allies…a true trade peace.” Macron was also the only leader who criticized Trump over his decision to hit Iran last week.
At the press conference, Trump also talked about the United States military strikes on Iran, calling them “very, very successful—total obliteration.” He said media outlets like CNN and The New York Times had “demeaned” US troops with their coverage. He added that intelligence reports backed the attack’s effectiveness. “We think we hit ‘em so hard and so fast, they didn’t get to move,” Trump said. “We destroyed the nuclear. It’s blown up…to kingdom come.”
He even compared the strikes to the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. “That ended the war, too. This ended a war differently, but it was so devastating,” he said. He claimed that bunker-buster bombs were used and insisted this cleared a path to peace in the Middle East. Finally, Trump was asked why he believed the latest ceasefire between Iran and Israel would hold. “They’re both tired, exhausted,” he said. “They were both satisfied to go home and get out.”