By Steve Holland and Nandita Bose
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened trade penalties, including tariffs, against Spain, saying he is unhappy with its refusal to raise defense spending to 5% and calling the move disrespectful to NATO.
“I’m very unhappy with Spain. They’re the only country that didn’t raise their number up to 5%… so I’m not happy with Spain,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
“I was thinking of giving them trade punishment through tariffs because of what they did, and I think I may do that,” Trump added.
The U.S. president was referring to Spain being the only member of the 32-nation alliance not to commit to increasing military spending to 5% of GDP, as agreed by NATO leaders in June.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez secured a last-minute exemption at the time, saying Spain would only spend up to 2.1%, which he called “sufficient and realistic.”
Madrid has argued it compensates for the lower spending with strong troop contributions to NATO missions, including deployments in Latvia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey.
(Reporting by Steve Holland and Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
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