October 14, 2025

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened Tuesday to slap tariffs on Spain over its lax defense spending, calling Madrid's refusal to meet a NATO benchmark “unbelievably disrespectful.”  

"I'm very unhappy with Spain. They're the only country that didn't raise up their number to 5 percent. Every other country in NATO raised up to 5 percent,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “I think what Spain did is a very bad thing for NATO.”  

He added he was “thinking about giving them [Spain] trade punishment through tariffs because of what they did,” in his most excoriating remarks on the subject yet. 

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