By Chris Summers
Contributing Writer
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — President Donald Trump has accused Spain of wanting a “free ride” after it refused to agree to the 5% of gross domestic product defense spending target set at the NATO summit on Wednesday, and has threatened to punish Madrid through trade.
During a question-and-answer session after he made a speech at the summit in The Hague on Wednesday, Trump was asked by a Spanish journalist if he was satisfied with Spain’s contribution to NATO.
Trump replied, “It’s terrible what they’ve done. They’re the only country that won’t pay the full amount. They want to stay at 2%. I think it’s terrible.”
On Sunday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said he had reached a deal with NATO.
“Spain will, therefore, not spend 5% of its GDP on defense, but its participation, weight, and legitimacy in NATO remain intact,” he said.
Spain spent 1.28%, according to NATO estimates, on military expenditure in 2024, making it the alliance’s lowest spender, but Sanchez said it would increase to 2.1%.
Trump said the Spanish economy was “doing very well” but that it could be “blown out of the water” if something bad happened to it.
Then he told the Spanish journalist, “You know what we’re going to do? We’re negotiating with Spain on a trade deal. We’re going to make them pay twice as much, and I’m actually serious about that.”
Trump said he liked Spain and the Spanish people but that he felt Sanchez’s government was not acting fairly.
Trump: ‘It’s Unfair’
“Spain is the only country, out of all of the countries, that refuses to pay; they want a little bit of a free ride, but they have to pay it back to us on trade, because I’m not going to let that happen. It’s unfair,” Trump said.
Later, another Spanish journalist asked Trump whether he planned to negotiate directly with Spain.
“I’m going to negotiate directly with Spain. I’m going to do it myself. They’re going to pay. They’ll pay more money this way,” he replied.
Trump told her to go back to Spain and tell the country’s political leaders they ought to join all the other NATO countries who had agreed to pay 5% of GDP.
“Spain’s going to be just about the only one that’s not; they were the most hostile toward doing it. It just doesn’t make sense to me,” he added.
In April 2025, the Trump administration imposed reciprocal tariffs of 20% on imports from Spain and all the other European Union countries.
That figure was later reduced to 10%, pending negotiations.
Spain has signed the Hague Summit Declaration, which commits all NATO members to “invest 5% of GDP annually on core defense requirements as well as defense-and security-related spending by 2035.”
But Spanish Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo said on Wednesday, in an interview on Bloomberg TV, that he believed it could meet its NATO targets while earmarking just 2.1% of its GDP.
“It’s just a different estimation on how much it will cost for Spain to make good on commitments covering the capabilities of NATO to protect itself,” Cuerpo said.
On June 12, Sanchez said he would not call new elections, despite a series of corruption scandals that have hit his coalition government.
Sanchez Fights On
Sanchez, who leads the Socialist Party, said on Wednesday, “I am determined to run in the next general election in 2027.”
On June 20, Spanish police entered the Socialist Party’s headquarters in Madrid to copy the emails of Santos Cerdan, one of Sanchez’s former aides, who had resigned a week earlier after a police report on alleged corruption was published.
The Cerdan case followed a scandal over the sale of COVID-19 face masks during the pandemic.
On June 16, the Socialist Party suspended former minister José Luis Ábalos after one of his advisers was allegedly embroiled in a scheme to profit from face masks.
Sanchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez, has also been investigated by a judge over alleged influence peddling, which she denies.
Reuters contributed to this report.
