Andalusia is, today, Pedro Sánchez’s main political objective. The President of the Government has a lot at stake in the regional elections on May 17. For this reason, the socialist leader entered the fray yesterday when he was asked about an alleged Pentagon report revealed by a US official in which the US military high command would be considering the possibility of “suspending” Spain, in addition to other countries such as the United Kingdom, from important positions in NATO for being “difficult” allies. That is, especially for not having cooperated in Washington’s attack plan on Iran.
Sánchez, who has made the banner of “No to war” and the confrontation with Donald Trump a topic of political dispute, said: “There is no debate. We fulfill our obligations, we are a loyal partner. “We are committed and deployed in many of these areas that have been requested by the countries themselves and, therefore, absolute tranquility.”
The president referred to the umpteenth clash between administrations from Nicosia (Cyprus), where the meeting of heads of State and Government of the European Union was held.
This is not the first time that the US Administration has put pressure on Spain for not aligning itself with Donald Trump’s policies. Already in October 2025, the president of the United States even proposed the expulsion of Madrid from NATO after refusing to raise defense spending to 5% of GDP.
Although that proposal remained a new warning, since the Atlantic Alliance treaties themselves do not contemplate the possibility of expelling a member state in the terms in which the US president formulated it. In any case, Moncloa’s strategy team receives every threat from the other side of the pond as gasoline for its electoral engine.
The main US bases in Spain are, in fact, in Andalusia, in Rota (Cádiz) and in Morón de la Frontera (Seville). Therefore, Trump hitting Sánchez with them – it should be remembered that he also raised the possibility of closing them – is considered a gift in the president’s circle. The Spanish left is very sensitive to the American presence in national territory. Without going any further, Sumar and the rest of the parties on the left of the PSOE have been demanding for years that the Government suspend the treaty that keeps them operational. In fact, some foreign sources regret that the Government is willing to engage in internal politics with such a delicate issue.
The diplomatic corps and the Government itself have long feared a “strong blow” from the United States. But in Moncloa they are determined to remain firm. President Sánchez uses Trump as a political contrast figure. According to the strategy designed in Moncloa, the President of the Government confronts the American president – whom he places as a symbol of the “reactionary wave” – to reinforce his own speech against the Popular Party and Vox.
Sánchez aspires to present himself as Trump’s ideological counterweight on the global board. The diagnosis in the president’s environment is a “relevant” distinction in the European political debate: “The difference between liberal democracies and social democracies.” And that was what was seen in Barcelona last weekend. The president, flanked by some of the main leaders of the Latin American left, such as the president of Brazil, Lula da Silva, was enthroned as a reference for global anti-Trumpism.
The alleged plan to remove Spain from NATO is Donald Trump’s latest salvo against Pedro Sánchez.
The Republican has turned Spain’s defense spending into an exemplary cause within NATO. Not so much because Spain is the only uncomfortable ally, but because Sánchez publicly placed himself in the spotlight with that theatrical intervention the day before the start of the Alliance summit that took place in June of last year in The Hague.
That statement was so surprising that many journalists thought he was going to announce his resignation. Nothing to see. The reason was to announce that he did not plan to reach that 5%, the new bar imposed by the United States. An absurdity that Sánchez made an effort to stage in the family photo at the summit, placing himself at the end of the painting.
Moncloa defended that it could meet the capacity objectives required by the Alliance with a spending of 2.1% of GDP, not 5%. Sánchez’s argument was that NATO should not be measured only by percentages of GDP, but by real capabilities, personnel, equipment and infrastructure. The experts of the Armed Forces calculated, as the Government insisted, that Spain needed that 2.1% to comply with what was required by the Alliance.
From that point on, the debacle. A crazed Trump began to threaten our country in every possible way and at every opportunity that was presented to him. What started as a fight over 5% of GDP in Defense led to crazy threats (and impossible to execute) of tariffs, warnings to cut off bilateral trade and, in a more hidden way, move the Rota and Morón bases to another country.
There is no doubt that this latest attack is more of a joke than a feasible idea, but it portrays the deterioration of the situation. The Iran crisis has ended up turning Spain into the preferred target of Trumpian anger and, above all, has placed the bilateral relationship at the worst moment in its history. A deterioration that, according to diplomatic sources, does not seem to be recoverable in any way, at least in the short term.