President Donald Trump just ended all trade with Spain — and he did it on live camera at the NATO summit.
Sitting beside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Ankara, Turkey Wednesday morning, Trump turned to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and delivered the order: halt all trade with Spain immediately. No negotiation. No warning. Just action.
“We don’t have to trade with them. I don’t want to do any more trade with them. Take it immediately, don’t even talk to them. They’re hopeless, bad people.”
Bessent replied “yes sir.” Trump predicted Spain would “come running back.”
The move comes after years of Spain treating the NATO alliance like an optional club membership. While Trump has pushed NATO members toward a five percent of GDP defense spending target, socialist-governed Spain clings to the now-obsolete two percent standard — and Madrid insists that makes them a “good ally.”
It gets worse. Spain flat-out refused to assist the United States in the conflict with Iran in any capacity.
Trump didn’t mince words about why Spain earned the cutoff.
“Spain is a terrible partner in NATO. They don’t participate, they don’t pay. They’re open about it, they’re hostile.”
The President added that Spain treats NATO chief Mark Rutte — the former Dutch Prime Minister known in Brussels as a “Trump whisperer” for his ability to stay on the President’s good side — “terribly.”
European officials scrambled to push back. A European Union spokesman called on Washington to “honour its commitments.” Spain’s government insisted it can’t be singled out for an embargo because it’s part of the EU Single Market — a claim that assumes the rest of the world shares Brussels’ inflated view of EU authority.
Spanish officials told The Guardian they have “no intention” of changing their relationship with the U.S. They claimed the U.S. has a trade surplus with Spain, meaning “it benefits more from this relationship than we do.”
That spin doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.
Yes, the U.S. exports more to Spain than it imports — but a huge chunk of Spain’s imports is American energy in the form of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG). Spain’s LNG purchases from the U.S. jumped a fifth in the past year alone. The United States now accounts for a third of all Spanish gas imports.
That matters because Spain’s energy grid is dangerously unstable. Earlier this year, a massive power cut starting in Spanish territory knocked out electricity to an entire corner of Europe — a disaster blamed on Spain’s reckless reliance on solar power and weak energy security.
Cutting off American LNG leaves Spain vulnerable. And Trump knows it.
It isn’t yet clear what form the trade block will take. Trump has threatened Spain before over its attitude toward the Western alliance. This time, he gave the order in front of cameras with NATO’s top official sitting right there.
Spain called his bluff. Trump just showed them he wasn’t bluffing.
Spanish Def. Minister Claims Obligations to NATO Met ‘Despite What Trump Says’https://t.co/9nr1G0xkkw
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) July 6, 2026
