{"id":1758,"date":"2026-07-08T16:42:55","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T11:42:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=1758"},"modified":"2026-07-08T16:42:55","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T11:42:55","slug":"trump-orders-halt-to-us-trade-with-spain-over-nato-spending-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=1758","title":{"rendered":"Trump orders halt to US trade with Spain over NATO\u00a0spending, Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\" data-body-type=\"bodyblocks\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">ANKARA\/MADRID, July 8 (Reuters) &#8211; U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered an immediate halt to all trade with NATO ally Spain, escalating tensions over defence spending and the Iran war, despite \u200cEuropean Union rules requiring trade negotiations to be conducted as a single bloc.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">During a NATO \u200csummit in Ankara, which European leaders had hoped would put a lid on rifts within the military alliance, Trump instead reignited the \u200bdispute with Spain. He also irked another NATO ally Denmark by reiterating that his country should control Greenland. Denmark promised to defend every inch of its territory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It was the second time Trump has instructed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to halt commerce with Spain over its refusal to commit to NATO&#8217;s new defence spending target of 5% of GDP. \u200cHowever, after his first such promise \u2060in March, trade between the two countries continued normally.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Spain doesn&#8217;t agree to anything, and you shouldn&#8217;t carry them,&#8221; Trump told NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who later tried \u2060to soothe the tension by saying that Spain &#8220;made a huge step last year&#8221; raising its spending to 2%, although he added that &#8220;there are still issues we have to solve&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;I don&#8217;t want to do any trade with them, alright?&#8221; \u200bTrump \u200bsaid, turning to Bessent, who replied: &#8220;Yes, sir.&#8221; Trump then added, &#8220;Take \u200bit immediately. Don&#8217;t even talk to them. \u200cThey&#8217;re hopeless. They&#8217;re bad people &#8230; They make so much money with us, and we&#8217;re going to see that they make a lot less.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The office of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who leads a minority leftist government, said in a statement it was treating Trump&#8217;s statements as &#8220;business as usual&#8221; and did not intend to change the &#8220;excellent&#8221; relations it enjoyed with Washington.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It pointed out that Spain had a trade deficit with the U.S. \u200cand that economic ties were forged by private companies rather \u200bthan governments, adding that as part of the customs and trade \u200bunion, individual EU members could not be \u200bsingled out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Trump has repeatedly expressed frustration with Spain after Sanchez, a Socialist, refused to \u200clet the U.S. use its airspace or bases \u200bon its territory for the \u200bIran war. Washington jointly operates with Madrid two key military bases in southern Spain for naval and air operations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Spain is the world&#8217;s largest olive oil exporter and also sells auto parts, steel, and \u200bchemicals to the United States, although \u200canalysts consider it to be less vulnerable to Trump&#8217;s threats of economic punishment than other \u200bEuropean economies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Gram Slattery and David Latona; Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu and \u200bSabine Siebold; Editing by Charlie Devereux and Andrei Khalip)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ANKARA\/MADRID, July 8 (Reuters) &#8211; U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered an immediate halt to all trade with NATO ally Spain, escalating tensions over defence spending and the Iran war, despite \u200cEuropean Union rules requiring trade negotiations to be conducted as a single bloc. During a NATO \u200csummit in Ankara, which European leaders had&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/lo\/mysterio\/api\/f41065bb0ca57cf2932aa6cab59f20eb5467b174b0454814d08da3e8db27b5fa\/lightyear_networkapi\/resizefill_w800_h533;quality_80;format_webp\/https:%2F%2Fmedia.zenfs.com%2Fen%2Freuters.com%2F9a91c65a5f3f2212892b57b4725aa110","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-trending-viral-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}