Europe will decide the success of Sánchez's 'all in' with Trump
For context and necessity, international policy has become a priority for Pedro Sánchez's government. La Moncloa, which has a very large team of foreign policy advisors, cannot hide that, for months, a clear objective has been pursued: to establish Sánchez as the leading progressive leader in Europe. The vocation is not only European; it also seeks to have an impact beyond the EU's borders, especially in Latin America, a cousin and future region that may soon improve Sánchez's strategic standing in Brussels.
Politics is often paradoxical, and Donald Trump has become Sánchez's best ally in promoting his global strategy: the Spanish Prime Minister knows that confrontation with Trumpism benefits him, and that's why he usually seeks it. It's simple electoral arithmetic: an external enemy unifies, propels him onto the world stage, and helps dilute internal problems and controversies. It is also arithmetic that sympathies with Trumpism from PP-Vox can mobilize the left-wing vote. Probably, from Sánchez's presidential cabinet, they are looking at the Mark Carney miracle. The current Canadian Prime Minister won the 2025 elections after a spectacular comeback thanks to a campaign focused on confronting Trump's imperialist threats. Madrid is not Ottawa, but polls insist that Trump is persona non grata for the vast majority of Europeans.
The Spanish government insists on setting its own course, and in recent months – with more or less success – it has often distanced itself from the European consensus. In the case of Gaza, it has been the most combative EU government against Israel. Madrid has also moved away from the community logic in its relations with Beijing; in its stance on the migration agenda; in condemning the attack on Venezuela and the capture of Nicolás Maduro; or in commenting on the tech bros friends of the White House. "Let the techno-oligarchs bark, Sancho, it means we are riding," tweeted Sánchez, evoking Don Quixote, after being insulted by Elon Musk. In Washington's eyes, of all the list of grievances, what had probably annoyed them the most so far was Sánchez's refusal to commit to allocating 5% of GDP to defense, as Trump demands from NATO allies. The socialist's stance, which also responds to internal logic, has distanced him from the select club of EU leaders trying to negotiate the European voice on the war in Ukraine.
But the riskiest move we saw this week. Sánchez reacted again with much more forcefulness than the other European partners to the Yankee and Israeli bombs on Tehran. While Germany, France, and also the United Kingdom aligned themselves completely with Washington and showed their teeth to Iran, the socialist government denounced that the actions of the United States and Israel – despite having as their objective "a terrible regime," in Sánchez's words – violated international law and plunged the Middle East, and by extension, the world into an even more unstable and dangerous landscape. So far, the gesture was predictable. What they did not expect in the White House was that Madrid would deny US forces the use of the military bases of Rota and Morón de la Frontera if the objective of the actions was to wage war against Iran. All in from La Moncloa against the most powerful country in the world.
Sources from Sánchez's presidential cabinet emphasize that his foreign policy tries to be based on coherence. The action regarding the military bases is certainly coherent with the Spanish Prime Minister's discourse, but the impact and the political price it may lead to is now an unknown. From the room where Volodymyr Zelensky was humiliated, Trump declared diplomatic war on Madrid on Tuesday: live, he said he would cut off all trade with Spain and that Sánchez was a "terrible partner." Trumpian fire and fury. Trump explodes when those around him abandon the strategy of genuflection, so popular in Europe and mastered to perfection by Mark Rutte. Experts predict that the United States' threat to cut ties with Spain is practically impossible to fulfill, a bluff, and that trade relations – more beneficial for Washington, by the way – depend on agreements signed with the European Union. In Brussels, they downplayed Trump's outburst and limited themselves to recalling that they would ensure full protection of the EU's interests. In La Moncloa, they stand firm and rely on European protection for whatever may come.
And the political key to Sánchez's move lies here and transcends Spanish borders: Europe will decide whether the socialist government's all in with Trump works. The serious diplomatic incident, unprecedented, between Washington and Madrid is a new opportunity to invoke European unity in the face of a leader – he can no longer be called a partner or ally – who constantly despises the EU and its meanings. German Chancellor Merz, standing next to Trump on Tuesday while the Republican attacked Spain, missed a golden opportunity, and his silence will go down in the history of community shame. Sánchez's hope lies in the movement of other European partners, who in recent hours have taken steps in the direction that Madrid has set: France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, or Norway have expressed doubts about US actions in the Middle East.
The American bombs – at the express request of Netanyahu, it is worth remembering – are a clear message to European governments, strategically irrelevant once again: Trump's United States, more unpredictable and accustomed to the use of force, has made geopolitics and international relations the law of the jungle. In Brussels, too dependent on Washington's protection and conditioned by the future of Ukraine – an existential war, it seems to have concluded that, after a year of humiliations, the strategy of genuflection before the White House does not work. The problem is that the alternative is not sufficiently mature and makes many European chancellories' hair stand on end. The extent of Trump's response against Sánchez, which has yet to materialize, will provide clues about the viability of the alternative.
