Trump targets Spain with tariffs in BRICS mistake

Spain has a meager contribution to NATO and, therefore, could face 100% tariffs from the United States, according to President Donald Trump, who unfortunately confused it with a BRICS countries.

When asked by a reporter what would happen to NATO countries that failed to meet the 2% spending target, Trump responded that Spain’s contribution was “very small.”

He added that if the BRICS countries want to miss their target, they can, but the United States will impose “at least 100% tariffs on the business it does with the United States.”

Visibly confusing Spain with a member of BRICS, which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and five other countries, and although he was corrected by a journalist, he reiterated that customs tariffs were on the agenda.

RTVE later reported that Trump probably thought the “S” for South Africa was an “S” for Spain. It also appears that he thought the BRICS countries were linked to NATO.

A senior European official told Euractiv that their main fear was that Trump did not understand Europe and how it worked. They fear that this lack of understanding will force them to explain everything to him to prevent him from making decisions without knowing the consequences.

Spain fails to devote 2% of its GDP to defense, much less the 4% demanded by Trump. It is the one that spends the least among the 32 members of NATO, only 1.28% of GDP.

Some 23 other members reached the 2% mark, with Poland topping the list with a target of 4.7% this year.

Furthermore, the Spanish Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles (PSOE), recalled on Tuesday that Spain is a serious, reliable, responsible and committed NATO ally, with more than 3,800 military personnel participating in maintenance missions. peace and a presence in Latvia, Slovakia, Romania and Turkey.

A government spokesperson was also quick to downplay the BRICS mistake, saying that Spain is not part of BRICS and is not an emerging country.

Avoiding directly criticizing Trump, they asserted that the United States was a reliable partner and stressed that Madrid would seek to maintain good relations with the new administration.

But junior coalition partner Sumar was not as measured, with Labor Minister Yolanda Díaz calling Trump dangerous and sounding the alarm over his strategy to “wipe out the entire European space “.

“The challenge today must be more Europe, more democracy (…), more human rights and firm action against digital and technological monopolies,” added the minister.

BRICS was created as a counterbalance to the G7 bloc and includes Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, which together represent about half of the world’s population. Critics claim that BRICS has anti-Western and anti-American objectives due to several initiatives that run counter to those put forward by the G7, the EU and the United States.

Among other initiatives, the BRICS group of countries plans to create an alternative currency to the dollar to counterbalance the American and Chinese giants.

(Fernando Heller | Euractiv.es)