Only Spain has been honest about this and that has angered the American president.
Trump has called Spain a “laggard,” and has threatened to “throw them out of NATO.” More recently, he has vowed to punish Spain by imposing additional tariffs on Spanish exports.
If the goal here is to strengthen European nations’ capacity to thwart a possible Russian threat, this is a very strange way to go about it. In his first term, Trump pushed NATO countries to spend 3 percent of GDP on defense, an increase over the 2 percent goal set earlier by President Barack Obama.
The U.S. itself paid 3.4 percent in 2024. It clearly dominates NATO in gross defense expenditures. European countries are now buying American weapons — not for themselves, but to supply Ukraine. That will help Ukraine, but it isn’t going to strengthen the military readiness of our NATO allies.
Trump’s attacks on Spain ignore the recent history of the country and the fragility of its democratic institutions. I was a diplomat in Spain during the Franco era and later did a study of the transition to democracy for the U.S. Senate as it was considering whether to raise a military bases agreement with Spain to the treaty level.
Among the challenges was the military’s myopic domestic mission, e.g. to maintain autocratic control over the Spanish people. They were aided and abetted in this by the Guardia Civil, a national police force that was anything but civil.
They had their hands full with insurrectionists in the Basque Country and Catalonia. Terrorist acts were, sadly, commonplace.
After Franco died in 1975, a few of his ministers worked with Crown Prince Juan Carlos to create a democratic monarchy. When I arrived back in Spain in January 1975, progress was being made. Political parties were forming, and preparations were underway for a democratic election.
Juan Carlos had befriended key military leaders, and several generals who weren’t trusted were reassigned to remote posts. That wasn’t enough, however. On Feb. 1, 1981, as the parliament (the Cortes) was just forming for the new year, some in the military attempted a coup d’etat.
The next day, at the request of his prime minister, King Juan Carlos went on national television. Wearing his captain general’s uniform, he ordered the military to stand down. Surprisingly, they obeyed.
The Spanish military and the Guardia Civil remained a threat to the new democracy, as did the independence aspirations of the two provinces. It has taken extraordinary efforts in the time since to keep these regions within Spain.
The military has gradually moved away from its domestic orientation and toward embracing the external NATO mission. The Guardia, meanwhile, has become more of a traditional crime fighting organization.
Still, the government of President Pedro Sanchez is inherently unstable, given its dependence on several regional parties. According to Economist Intelligence’s country assessment the “risk of policy paralysis and of the government collapsing before the end of its term in 2027 is very high.”
If the social safety net is weakened by transferring resources to defense, public agitation will follow. While the economic growth rate is now slightly above the European average, it is not likely to maintain that rate of growth.
The strategic objective of the American administration should be to strengthen the NATO alliance and to enhance its capacity to deter Russia. Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, is doing all in his power to undermine the European Union and NATO. He floods Europe with propaganda, attacks its infrastructure, supports right-wing parties and compromises election systems.
It makes no sense to pressure fragile democracies like Spain, undercutting their capacity to contribute to NATO. The same is true of other NATO countries experiencing serious economic challenges.
Trump’s tirades against the only European nation being honest about its situation is self-defeating. If he were the slightest bit aware of modern Spanish history, he might recognize that he is contributing to Putin’s strategy, not to our own.
J. Brian Atwood is a senior fellow at Brown University’s Watson School of International and Public Affairs. He was a foreign service officer in Spain from 1970 to 1972, and later served as assistant secretary of State, undersecretary of State for management and administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development.