Trump accuses Spain of being a “freeloader” for not increasing its defense spending to 5%

The U.S. President, Donald Trump, accused Spain this Thursday in Davos (Switzerland) of being “a freeloader” for being “the only NATO country that has not committed to increasing its defense spending to 5% of GDP” and added that he would like to talk to that country about it. “I have commitments from practically all NATO allies to increase their defense spending to 5% (of GDP), from all except Spain… I don’t know what’s going on with Spain,” he pointed out during the ceremony of constitution of the Peace Board he promotes. Trump insisted on pointing out Spain as a country that has distanced itself from the rest in terms of its financial commitments to Defense within the framework of NATO, and said that he believed it is a “freeloader”.

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It’s not the first time Trump has criticized Spain for not increasing its defense spending. The US president’s statements come a day after he said in his speech to the Davos Forum that the United States has gained nothing from NATO and that the only thing this organization has done is defend Europe from the Soviet Union and Russia. “The only thing we’ve gotten from NATO is to protect Europe from the Soviet Union and now from Russia. That is, we’ve helped them for many years. We’ve never gotten anything, except to pay for NATO, and we’ve done that for many years, until I came along,” Trump said. The criticisms of Spain occurred within the framework of the ceremony constituting the Peace Board promoted by Trump, originally conceived to oversee his peace plan for Gaza and which he now wants to extend to other global conflicts.