[News] 'No to war': Spanish PM fires back at Trump over threats to cut trade

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 'No to war': Spanish PM fires back at Trump over threats to cut trade

Trump threatened to ‘cut all dealings’ with Madrid, and said ‘Spain has
been terrible’ for refusing US requests to use joint bases for attacks on
Iran

News Desk <https://thecradle.co/authors/news-desk-9>

MAR 4, 2026 -
https://thecradle.co/articles/no-to-war-spanish-pm-fires-back-at-trump-over-threats-to-cut-trade
(Photo credit: Reuters)

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez responded
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/04/pedro-sanchez-donald-trump-threat-cut-off-trade-spain>
on 4 March to US President Donald Trump’s threat to cut trade with Madrid,
doubling down on his country’s refusal to participate in the war on Iran.

Spain will “not be complicit in something that is bad for the world – and
that is also contrary to our values and interests – simply out of fear of
reprisals from someone,” Sanchez said in a speech on Wednesday. “You can’t
respond to one illegality with another because that’s how humanity’s great
disasters begin.”

“You can’t play Russian roulette with the destiny of millions … Nobody
knows for sure what will happen now. Even the objectives of those who
launched the first attack are unclear. But we must be prepared, as the
proponents say, for the possibility that this will be a long war, with
numerous casualties and, therefore, with serious economic consequences on a
global scale,” he added.

Sanchez said his country’s position could be described in three words: “No
to war.”

He also referred back to the US war on Iraq, saying that the war aimed “to
eliminate Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, to bring democracy,
and to guarantee global security,” but “unleashed the greatest wave of
insecurity our continent has suffered since the fall of the Berlin Wall.”

It has become widely accepted as fact that the late Iraqi president Saddam
Hussein’s government did not possess weapons of mass destruction.
Similarly, US intelligence reports refute Washington
<https://thecradle.co/articles/us-commanders-tell-troops-iran-war-gods-divine-plan-trump-anointed-to-ignite-armageddon-report>’s
claim that Tehran seeks a nuclear weapon.

“It is absolutely unacceptable that those leaders who are incapable of
fulfilling this duty use the smokescreen of war to hide their failure and,
in the process, line the pockets of a select few – the same ones as always;
the only ones who profit when the world stops building hospitals and starts
building missiles,” the Spanish premier went on to say.

Trump had threatened <https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8r1mzd8vygo> to
“cut off all dealings” with Madrid after it refused to accept a US request
for Washington to use jointly operated bases in southern Spain for ongoing
military attacks against the Islamic Republic. “Spain has been terrible,”
the president said during a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Trump also criticized Sanchez for rejecting a NATO proposal for members to
boost defense spending to five percent of their GDP.

“Everybody was enthusiastic about it – Germany, everybody – and Spain
didn’t do it. And now Spain said we can’t use their bases – and that’s OK.
We could use their bases; if we wanted, we could just fly in and use it.
Nobody’s going to tell us not to use it. But we don’t have to. But they
were unfriendly,” he said.

Spain was vocal about Tel Aviv's war crimes in Gaza throughout the two-year
genocide. In 2025, the country ordered an arms embargo on Israel.

Sanchez strongly condemned the US-Israeli war
<https://thecradle.co/articles/trump-open-to-arming-kurdish-separatist-groups-to-serve-as-boots-on-ground-in-iran-report>
on Iran after it began on 28 February. Nearly 1,000 Iranians have been
killed since then.
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