Trump’s criticisms of Spain hand struggling Sanchez unlikely boost

Mr Sanchez has repeatedly clashed with the US since Mr Trump’s return to office last year. Read more at straitstimes.com.

MADRID – Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, written off numerous times since taking office in 2018, is grabbing the political lifeline unwittingly thrown his way by US President Donald Trump.

The Prime Minister’s inner circle believes his opposition to the war in Iran – and to Mr Trump – could put the government on a path towards an unlikely electoral recovery ahead of 2027, when the next general election is due. 

“It’s a clear opportunity,” said Dr Cristina Monge, a politics professor at Complutense University of Madrid. “Spain is an openly pacifist country. If international tensions persist or escalate and everything revolves around Trumpism, Sanchez can present himself as the alternative.”

Mr Trump on March 3 issued a sharp rebuke of Spain, calling it a “terrible” ally and threatening to “cut off all dealings” over its refusal to allow the US to use its two military bases in the country for the offensive in Iran. “They have great people, but they don’t have great leadership,” Mr Trump said.

That gave the Socialist Sanchez a chance to engage in the patriotic theatre typically dominated by the right. On March 5, senior party officials have even worn T-shirts bearing the Spanish flag – a symbol usually claimed by conservatives – to a parliamentary session and a minister made it their profile picture on social media.

“We are not going to be complicit in something that is harmful to the world and contrary to our values and interests simply out of fear of someone’s retaliation,” Mr Sanchez said in a speech on March 4. It is “naive”, he added, to think that “blind and servile compliance is a way to lead”.