The North American president claims that Madrid has no excuse for rejecting the increase in the Defense budget. In response, the Spanish Government assured that it was “very calm”.
US President Donald Trump suggested this Thursday to his Finnish counterpart Alexander Stubb that “maybe they should expel” NATO’s Spain, accusing Madrid of not fulfilling the alliance’s defense spending commitments.
“We had a latecomer, which was Spain”, highlighted Trump in the Oval Office, referring to the agreement of the Atlantic Alliance, of which Portugal is a part, to allocate 5% of member countries’ GDP for defense expenses.
“They have no excuse not to do it. But that’s okay. Maybe they should kick them out of NATO, frankly,” Trump stressed.
Spanish government guarantees to be very calm
The Spanish Government has already reacted to the US president’s statements and assured that he was “very calm”.
Government sources reiterated to the Efe agency that Spain is a full member and committed to NATOa military alliance of which Portugal is also part.
The executive led by Pedro Sánchez further highlighted that it fulfills “with your capacity objectives” as much as the United States.
The last NATO summit, in June in the Netherlands, resulted in the allies’ general agreement with a new commitment to gradually increase, by 2035, annual investment in Defense and related expenses to 5% of GDP.
However, Spain rejected this higher target of 5%, Given the “irrational” and, alternatively, it reached an agreement to stay out of the commitment, leaving its obligations to the alliance to spend 2.1% of GDP on Defense.
Spain had already declared its intention to achieve the previous NATO target of 2% of GDP in Defense expenditure by the end of 2025, instead of the original date of 2029.
With Lusa
