Trump now says that Spain "has redeemed itself" after accepting a NATO payment request

Special correspondent in AnkaraNew twist from President Donald Trump. After spending the entire NATO summit in Ankara criticizing Spain, the President of the United States has changed his tone towards Pedro Sánchez's government and assured on the plane back that "he has completely redeemed himself" because Moncloa has accepted an "important payment request". "Spain has been very generous today. They agreed to an important payment request and, had they not done so, we wouldn't have even spoken to them," the American leader assured.

However, Trump has not clarified which Spanish state payment he is referring to. At the moment, the Spanish government has not announced any new arms purchase or extra disbursement for defense. Of course, Spain has already reached 2% of its gross domestic product (GDP) in military spending. Although it refuses to reach 5% by 2035, as the United States demands, for the moment it is complying with the Atlantic Alliance's path of increasing defense spending. Divergences between NATO and Spain are expected to arise when, at a later stage, the Spanish government has to progressively increase this rate and continues to refuse to do so, as Sánchez assures at the moment.

In fact, in the report on military spending published at this summit by NATO, there are three allies — the Czech Republic, Slovenia, and Albania — that are below 2% of GDP in military spending. In addition, several Spanish governments have made public their opposition to the high rate demanded by Trump and their difficulties in allocating so much money to security, such as the United Kingdom, Italy, or, among others, Hungary.

On the other hand, Spain also participates in the NATO initiative dubbed PURL (Prioritized Ukraine Request List) which was promoted by Trump with the aim of making European allies pay even more for the war bill and, at the same time, gain economic benefit from it. It is a program of the Atlantic Alliance through which European allies buy weapons from the United States for the Pentagon to send to Ukraine, even though the American leader abruptly cut aid to Kyiv when he regained the White House. In total, the Spanish state has participated with 150 million euros, 50 of which were deposited at the beginning of the Atlantic Alliance summit in Ankara.