“I don’t want us to have anything to do with Spain […] Spain has nothing that we need,” Donald Trump snapped at the media live at the White House. Those words, followed by even more offensive ones, occurred. That guest was the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz. His silence while Trump attacked Spain was sepulchral… and very controversial.
Spanish Government sources criticized the German president’s public inaction, while Trump left Spain like a “terrible” partner and not trustworthy. The echoes of the complaints even reached Germany, where they affected the attitude of its head of government.
In private, he phone rang accompanied by statements a little later from Merz and other senior officials highlighting Spain’s role. AND justifying his silence at that time in a kind of “diplomacy” that forced it to be spoken in private, not in public.
Almost two months later, Friedrich Merz has ‘returned’ to that moment in a long . Asked what he thought while Trump unleashed his ‘monologues’ attacking NATO allies such as Spain and the United Kingdom, the CDU politician was concise. Although also of course.
“It was a short monologue. But I am not going to start talking about Spain or Great Britain in front of the press in the Oval Office“says Merz in the interview.
From that moment he remembers, above all, what they talked about afterwards. “I told the president closed door that both countries are reliable NATO partners that we must not lose“he adds, before acknowledging that he did prepare such a possible situation.
“From the beginning I told myself that There is no point in having a controversial discussion in this environment.. I have seen those who have done it and they have not turned out well,” he concludes in the interview, going back to February 2025.
