The Commission of Ursula von der Leyen came out this Wednesday in defense of Spain after renewed threats from Donald Trump to impose individualized tariffs for the refusal of Pedro Sanchez to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP.
Brussels has assured that it will respond “appropriately” before any measure that the United States may adopt against one or more Member States.
Trade policy is a “exclusive competence” of the Community Executive and relations in this area between the EU and the US are governed by the tariff pact signed by Von der Leyen and Trump at the end of July in Scotland, which established a general tariff of 15% for most European products.
“We will respond appropriatelyas we always do, in the event of any measure taken against one or more of our Member States,” explained Commerce spokesperson Olof Gill at a press conference.
“The first thing to remember is that trade is an exclusive competence of the European Commission, which acts on behalf of all EU Member States,” he noted.
“We now have a trade agreement between the EU and the United States. This agreement serves as a platform to address any additional issues related to trade or commercial affairs,” the spokesperson concluded.
The president of the United States does not ease the pressure on Sánchez to force him to increase defense spending. After exposing himself to 30 world leaders at the peace summit in Gaza last Monday, Trump returned to the fray this Tuesday during a meeting with Argentine Javier Milei.
“I am very dissatisfied with Spain. It is the only country that did not increase its figure to 5%. All other NATO countries raised it to 5%. And Spain is living very well at our expense. So I’m not happy with Spain. Spain receives protection and they know it,” he said.
“Even if you don’t want to protect them, you are protecting them because of the place where they are located. And I think that what Spain did is something very bad for NATO. I think it is very unfair for NATO,” insisted the president of the United States.
“What they did is not right. I think it is very disrespectful to NATO. In fact, I was thinking of applying trade punishment to them through tariffs for what they did. And I may do it,” Trump threatened.
“It is deeply disrespectful. Spain is the only one that said that among all the NATO countries. And I think they should be punished for it.“he concluded.
The president of the United States already threatened to impose tariff surcharges on our country as soon as the NATO summit in The Hague in June ended, where Sánchez signed the 5% objective but then announced that he was not going to comply with it and that he would settle at 2.1%.
Last week, Trump also said that Spain should be expelled from NATO for its refusal to increase defense spending. But neither his ambassador to the Atlantic Alliance nor his Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, have repeated this threat.