Back at it. The President of the United States, Donald Trump, has once again criticized Spain through a message on his social network, Truth. “Has anyone noticed how badly Spain is doing? Its economic figures, despite contributing practically nothing to NATO or its military defense, are absolutely disastrous. It’s very sad to see!”, he wrote.
Trump’s statements clash again with reality. The International Monetary Fund has just placed Spain this week as one of the developed economies that will grow the most this year and next. According to the IMF’s economic forecasts, Spain will chain five years leading GDP growth among European Union countries. Moreover, the Spanish labor market is showing solid iron health. The labor market created 211,510 jobs in the best March on record, reaching 22 million affiliates, a new record. Analysts cite Spain as an example for its performance in recent years.
On the other hand, Spain contributes to NATO according to the agreement reached among Alliance members last summer. At that time, it was agreed to raise defense spending from 2% to 5% of GDP. The government of Pedro Sánchez warned that it would not reach that level because it believes it can meet military capability goals with a lower budget, just over 2%, equivalent to about 35 billion euros. The Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, distanced himself from the joint agreement but guaranteed that he would fulfill his obligations regarding the targets.
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The message from the Republican leader coincides with the celebration of the summit in defense of democracy that the Spanish government is holding in Barcelona, where it has convened progressive leaders from around the world this weekend. The event is highlighting progressive unity against Donald Trump. The meeting has shown unprecedented unity among leaders from different political traditions such as Pedro Sánchez, the Brazilian Lula da Silva, the Mexican Claudia Sheinbaum, the Colombian Gustavo Petro, and the South African Cyril Ramaphosa with a common message against Donald Trump.
The latest salvo against Spain also comes just hours after he shared information published by CBS that echoed an exclusive revealed by EL PAÍS a couple of weeks ago about the decision of Pedro Sánchez’s government to close airspace to U.S. military planes conducting missions in Iran. “They haven’t been there for us,” the Republican leader wrote on Friday on Truth.
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