‘No to war’: Sánchez doubles down after Trump threat to cut off trade with Spain

'Spain has been terrible,' Mr Trump told German chancellor Friedrich Merz during their meeting at the White House

Thu, 05 Mar, 2026 - 01:00

Sam Jones

The Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has responded to Donald Trump’s threat to cut off all trade with Spain over his government’s refusal to facilitate the US’s ongoing attacks against Iran, comparing the growing conflict in the Middle East to playing “Russian roulette with the destiny of millions”.

Mr Sánchez, one of the most vociferous European critics of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, said his government’s position on the widening instability could be summed up in three words: “No to war.”

In what appeared to directly address Mr Trump’s threats to end all trade with Spain, he said his country would “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”.

On Tuesday, Mr Trump rounded on Madrid for refusing the US permission to use jointly operated bases in Spain to continue its attacks in Iran.

“Spain has been terrible,” Mr Trump said during a meeting with the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, adding he had told the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, to “cut off all dealings” with the country.

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Mr Sánchez called on the US, Israel, and Iran to stop their war before it was too late, saying: “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 pointedly invoked the 2003 invasion of Iraq as a warning of the looming dangers.

Mr Sánchez said that, while that war ostensibly had been intended “to eliminate Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, to bring democracy, and to guarantee global security”, it had instead “unleashed the greatest wave of insecurity our continent has suffered since the fall of the Berlin Wall”.

Mr Sánchez said a government’s responsibility was to protect and improve the lives of its citizens, and not to use geopolitics to cynical ends or to profit from war.

“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,” he said.

Mr Merz said he had told Mr Trump privately that Spain could not be excluded from a trade agreement reached between Brussels and Washington last year.

“I said that Spain is a member of the European Union and we negotiate about tariffs with the United States only together or not at all,” he said.

“There is no way to treat Spain particularly badly.”