Donald Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on Spain if it fails to comply with the 5% of GDP defense spending agreed within the NATO framework has run into Brussels. The European Commission reiterated this Wednesday—once again—that trade is its exclusive jurisdiction, and that an attack of this type against a member country is something to which the EU should respond as a bloc. And it will do so if necessary.
“We will respond appropriately, as we always do, to any measures taken against one or more of our Member States,” a European Union spokesperson responded to a question about the U.S. president’s renewed threats against Spain.
The Belgian capital is hosting a meeting of NATO defense ministers this Wednesday to discuss, among other things, defense spending following the agreement reached in The Hague in June to increase it to 5% of GDP. Spain has secured a safeguard to try to meet its agreed-upon targets with just the 2.1% spending that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s government says it considers sufficient.
At the same time, the EU spokesperson noted that the EU has reached a bilateral trade agreement with the United States to curb the tariff escalation that Trump threatened to impose on the entire bloc. “This is the platform to address any trade or trade-related issues,” the spokesperson emphasized, declining to comment on the specific Spanish case since, at least for now, it is a “hypothetical” matter.
During the Hague summit at the end of June, Trump had threatened to impose tariffs on Spain for defying his demand that all allies increase defense spending to 5% (3.5% on defense and 1.5% on related spending), although until a few days ago he had not mentioned this possibility again, nor did he mention it on Monday during his brief meeting with Sánchez in the Egyptian city of Sharm el Sheikh, where Trump and other world leaders signed the Gaza ceasefire agreement.
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