Just a few hours after taking office, Donald Trump confused Spain with one of the BRICS countriesdisfigured its level of defense spending and threatened with tariffs. This Wednesday the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, responded with the commitment that The country will reach 2% of GDP investment at the military level in 2029 and he assured that Spain is the tenth ally that contributes the most to NATO, but he forgot, of course, that in percentage terms it is at the bottom, with 1.28%on par with, for example, Slovenia or Luxembourg.
“Let me also say that during the last 10 years we have increased our total defense investment by 70%,” said the head of the Executive in an interview with the CNBC network from Switzerland, where he also recalled that Spain is “committed” to the boom of defense spending; now the ceiling is at 2%, but NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has already warned that “it is not enough” and Donald Trump himself has already spoken of between 4% and up to 5%, threatening those who do not comply with tariffs.
Washington, of course, is asking for the impossible at the moment. For example, according to the data handled, only Poland will exceed 4% (up to 4.12%) by the end of this yearwhile other countries such as Estonia, the US itself, Latvia or Greece may exceed 3%. That is to say, these countries would be well above the 2% target, so they would meet expectations, but they would still remain far from the new order launched by Trump.
Spain, in fact, is at the bottom of Defense spending in proportion to its gross domestic product of the 32 members of NATO. This was made clear by the latest report from the Atlantic Alliance on spending forecasts for 2024, in which it is estimated that the Spanish Government will allocate 1.28% of GDP. In that late wagon they are also Croatia, Portugal, Italy, Canada, Belgium, Luxembourg and Slovenia. These are the countries that at the end of this year will still be below 2%, and therefore also very far from that 5% that the United States now claims.
In this scenario, Sánchez prefers not to focus on the figures themselves. “We are a reliable partner, and I think we have to look thoroughly if a country whether or not it is committed to the security of NATO allies“, he developed during the interview, in a line that the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, also spoke about, for example.
Defense has become a priority for the EU, and this was made clear this Wednesday by the President of the European Council, Antonio Costa, who also recalled that the Union “is the fundamental pillar of the rules-based international order.” . Brussels wants to confront models, from “cooperation”, with the US. Of course, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has assumed that “the world has changed” with the return of Donald Trump to the White House and assumes that now “a tough geostrategic battle” begins.
In that sense, the leader of the community Executive warns that the EU “has to change too”, with an “open” proposal against the protectionism that comes from Washington; Thus, he has sent a message to the US president claiming that the Paris Agreement “is the hope” in the fight against climate change hours after Washington signed its withdrawal from it. In this scenario, however, investment at the military level has become an ‘urgency’ for the West, and Spain seeks to catch up.
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