Tactic of isolation from any type of non-compliance is a DICTATORSHIP last I checked. “By the PEOPLE, for the PEOPLE”,,,,,,,NOT your EGO.
- By : James Bryson
- Category : International Relations, US News of note, World Events
“Lived in Spain for a bit. Important European country of pure and established DEMOCRACY. NOT a country to isolate at these times because “someones” feelings were hurt.” J.B
The latest impasse in relations between Spain and the United States goes beyond words.
The government of President Pedro Sánchez refused to allow the United States to use its military bases in the Mediterranean country to attack Iran.
And the response from US President Donald Trump came on Tuesday, when he announced that his country would suspend all trade with Spain.
“Spain has been terrible,” he declared. “We are going to suspend all trade with Spain. We want nothing to do with Spain,” he added.
This Wednesday, Sánchez responded to Trump and strongly refuted the threat from his American counterpart. In a televised address, without taking questions, he spoke about the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as the one in Iraq. He said that “the government’s position can be summed up in four words: ‘No to war’.”
“It is unacceptable that some presidents use the fog of war to cover up their failures,” Sánchez said, without mentioning Trump.
The United States has two bases in Spanish territory: the Morón de la Frontera air base and the Rota naval base, both in Andalusia, in the south of the country, where there are about 8,000 personnel.
The reason given by the Spanish government for the United States not using those two bases for its offensive in Iran is that it is not covered by the agreement that governs cooperation between the two countries.
“The bases are not and will not be used for anything that is not within the (Defense Cooperation) agreement and for anything that does not fit within the Charter of the United Nations,” said Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares on Monday.
In turn, Defense Minister Margarita Robles stressed that these types of “actions” require “international protection,” and that the offensive against Iran lacks “that framework of international legality” because the United States and Israel “are acting unilaterally, without the support of an international resolution.”
Sánchez, in turn, said on Sunday that the “two countries attacked Iran unilaterally without consulting the international community.”
Thus, it was learned this Monday that the United States had transferred a dozen KC-135 Stratotanker aerial refueling aircraft from the Morón and Rota bases to other military installations in Europe.
The KC-135s are essential for sustaining long-range air operations and their function is to refuel fighters and bombers in flight.
The Rota naval base is a strategic enclave in the Mediterranean. / JORGE GUERRERO/AFP via Getty Images
Following Trump’s statements on Tuesday, the Spanish government said that if Washington wants to change its trade relationship with Spain, “it must do so respecting the autonomy of private companies, international law, and bilateral agreements between the European Union and the United States.”
Sánchez’s government argued that Spain is “a key member of NATO” and that it fulfills its commitments and contributes “in a prominent way” to the defense of European territory.
“It is also an EU exporting powerhouse and a reliable trading partner for 195 countries worldwide, including the United States, with whom we have a long-standing and mutually beneficial trade relationship,” he added.
The legal reasons
The United States military bases in Spain play a key role due to their strategic position in the south of the Iberian Peninsula.
The Morón air base in Seville is an air base, and the Rota naval base is a joint installation where the US Navy operates alongside NATO and Spanish forces.
The origin of these bases lies in an agreement between both countries known as the Madrid Pacts, which were signed in 1953 between the then US President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the dictator Francisco Franco.
Since then, the agreements have been renewed.
It is precisely the 1988 Bilateral Cooperation Agreement for Defense that requires Spain’s authorization for the United States to use the bases in certain operations.
This also applies to aircraft transit and refueling missions: flights must fit within the purposes of the agreement and have the corresponding Spanish authorization.
‘Outside international law’
Sánchez described the US and Israeli military intervention in Iran as “unjustified, dangerous and outside international law,” while emphasizing that this is not incompatible with “being against a hateful regime like the Iranian regime.”
Ana Salazar, political scientist and president of the Spanish Association of Political Communication (ACOP), explains that, in this sense, this “is about the legal interpretation made by the Spanish State, considering that a military operation that does not have the explicit backing of the United Nations Security Council and that is not clearly part of a shared defense framework, requires express authorization which, in this case, has not been granted.”
According to Salazar, in the case of bilateral agreements, each country in the European Union (EU) has its own legal and political conditions, “and that is why we are seeing different responses.”
“It is not a European fracture, but the consequence of different legal architectures.”
Spain has been the EU country that has shown the toughest position against the US and Israeli offensive in Iran.
Even so, Sánchez’s government has recalled the Iranian ambassador to Spain for consultations to convey its “condemnation of all the attacks they are carrying out against practically all countries in the Middle East,” a measure it has not taken with the representatives of the US and Israel.
In political terms
Beyond the legal issues, some analysts believe there are other reasons behind the Spanish government’s position.
“The first reason is because he can do it. That’s no small reason,” explains Javier Martín Merchán, professor of Political Science and International Relations at the Pontifical University of Comillas (Spain).
Martín also points to issues of domestic politics. “Neither the government nor its parliamentary partners are interested in adopting a complicit attitude toward the Trump administration. And, at the same time, Spanish society in general tends to be opposed to any decision that involves direct or indirect participation in armed conflicts, and that is something that transcends ideologies.”
This is not the first disagreement between Sánchez and Trump since the Republican returned to the White House last year.
In June, the US president threatened trade retaliation against Spain for the Sánchez government’s refusal to increase its defense spending to 5% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), as the rest of the NATO countries had done.
Last Sunday, when the attacks in Iran had already begun, Sánchez said: “We have been warning about the consequences of the dangerous precedent of systematically resorting to force beyond and outside of international law (…). Denouncing the violation of human rights as in Gaza, the West Bank… The violation of international law in Venezuela…”.
“In short, we are hurtling dangerously towards a world that is increasingly unstable, insecure, belligerent and, therefore, more unjust for the average person,” he continued.
Despite this, Salazar believes that “on the domestic front, so far international policy has worked quite well for (Sánchez) both in the parliamentary arena and in his electoral arena.”
On the other hand, the political scientist believes that the international arena has often served Sánchez as “a space of opportunity that allows him to activate his multilateralist profile, show himself as a relevant actor in Brussels and reinforce an image of autonomy.”
For his part, Martín Merchán believes that in a context where “there is a realignment of US hegemony and international relations are more diverse, Spain can distance itself somewhat from the United States without this implying a total disengagement from the Atlantic Alliance.”
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