The story begins with the AP reporting that ‘Spain rejects NATO’s anticipated 5% defence spending proposal as unreasonable’. All for one and one for all. Indeed, Trump’s insistence on a major defence budget works well in Washington, since most of the arms come from American factories. However, the NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte seemed to have accepted over the weekend that Spain is different and agreed to a 2.1% limit for España.
How did Sánchez manage this?
Certainly, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the Partido Popular, would like to know. Sánchez replies in a tweet – ‘Here you go, Alberto, get someone to translate the letter from Rutte into Spanish for you’. Good fun (Alberto is no linguist).
On Monday, the NATO secretary general Mark Rutte told Donald Trump that ‘all the NATO allies have agreed to spend 5%’.
El HuffPost however reported on Tuesday that ‘Belgium and Slovakia join Spain in defending their "sovereign right" to limit their defence spending before NATO. These NATO member countries reject increasing their contributions and demand "flexibility" at the summit being held in The Hague’.
The New York Times quotes the American president: “They’re having a problem with Spain,” Mr. Trump said on Tuesday. “Always a problem with Spain. Spain’s not agreeing, which is very unfair to the rest of them”.
El Mundo says that ‘Allies revolt against Sánchez and his "bad example" in NATO: "Many countries are not happy with Spain". Spain's stance contrasts sharply with the commitment made by Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, which have announced their intention to embrace the 5% defence spending target’.
The left-wing Nueva Tribuna on the other hand thinks that Spain should leave the organisation entirely: ‘It's not national defence, it's business. If the United States wants to maintain NATO as an aggressive and feudalized organization to provide billions in revenue to its military industry, it is urgent that good and patriotic people, led by the Spanish military, urgently demand that NATO be abandoned’.
A graphic shows how much of their GDP each NATO country has been paying to date.
Trump says he will punish Spain with fresh tariffs. 'I'll have them paying double' he says.
Feijóo would have caved in and gone with the 5%, says Sánchez.
The Final Word here: ‘Sánchez reaffirms that the 2.1% military spending limit is sufficient despite NATO's doubts: "It's not an arbitrary figure"’.
Thinking about it later, Trump's blitz on the Nato allies earlier this week was like a thug barging into a shopping mall, saying to each outlet - pay up or else. When Spain said no, it got the heavy threats. It looked to me like a protection racket (I read a lot of crime novels).