2w ago

Trump Threatens to Double Spanish Tariffs Over NATO Spending

www.bloomberg.com Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

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        President Donald Trump criticized Spain for not agreeing to new defense spending targets adopted by NATO and suggested the country could face tariffs twice as high from the US.
    Trump stated that the US is negotiating a trade deal with Spain and threatened to make them pay twice as much, which caused Spain's benchmark stock index to extend its losses.
    Spanish officials dismissed Trump's tariff threat, emphasizing that the European Commission handles trade matters for the EU and that individual member states don't negotiate trade deals on their own.

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5% of GDP is often 40-50% of the countries federal budgets.
This is completely insane and it only serves to bankroll the US MIC into a new era of record profits.
It is unsustainable and will destroy economic growth as crucial infrastructure investments will fall short and it will create even more political instability and Fascism as it will be financed through cutting social security and investments and rising taxes on the lower and middle class.
As this is economically unsustainable there is only one solution while keeping this spending up. Recover some of the money spent by actually using the weapons to seize resources of foreign countries by war.
Last but not least a lot of the systems bought from the US could come with a kill switch so it will effectively being EU paying for renting US weapons that only work according to US interests.
Spain is the only country with some sense in this.
- Until now, it was mandatory to spend 2%, and almost no country met that goal. Now it’s going up to 5%, and it’ll be followed just as strictly as before. On top of that, the deadline is set for 2029—by then, Trump will either be out of office in the U.S., or he’ll have damaged their democracy so badly that it’ll be impossible not to call him a dictator. In any case, by then the game will have changed enough that a renegotiation will be inevitable.
  As a Spaniard, I can tell you that our president’s tantrum has more to do with trying to project strength at home—at a time of serious corruption scandals—than with any confrontation that might actually achieve something.
  
  mandatory to spend 2%,
  It wasn't mandatory
  
  It was as mandatory as the 5% will be now, right?
  
  Nobody knows, the new agreement hasn't been published yet (or at least I can't find it on the NATO website). What's on the NATO website is the previous one and the wording is intentionally very vague, as usual in these kinds of treaties so that everyone can keep doing their thing:
  Allies whose current proportion of GDP spent on defence is below this level will:
  aim to move towards the 2% guideline within a decade with a view to meeting their NATO Capability Targets and filling NATO's capability shortfalls. (emphasis mine)
  
  Mandatory minimum per agreement with no enforcement
  
  It was never mandatory, it was a suggestion.
  
  Read the agreement. It wasn't mandatory
  
  Sanchez is a pure politician, a party rat, who hasn't worked in a real job in his life. He simply wants to stay in power. He lacks any morals.
  Sadly, on the other side of the aisle it's exactly the same...
  
  I’m not against professional politicians—there are things they handle and defend better than "amateurs." What I’m against is dishonest politicians, and he’s shown himself to be one, by far.
  You can agree with his policies, measures, and ideas—whatever they may be—but if a politician is dishonest, they’ll always end up betraying you for their own interests.
- Spain's budget is ~21% of its gdp (with >10% unemployment you can imagine how bad they fucking bleed us with taxes, the poor I mean, for the rich is the same as anywhere else), but more than half of it goes to pensions, and we have a huge ,dense, and expensive bureaucracy that takes a good chunk of the rest (I don't have numbers sorry).
  So, I think you are right, there's just no more money: touching the pensions is political suicide (and very unfair), scaling down bureaucracy is just impossible, rising taxes would suffocate us (even more), taxing the rich is as much of a fairy tale as it is in any other country...
  On top of that, if you read a history book you will see that the Spanish military is a much bigger threat for Spain than the Russian. I don't think it's in the best interest of the Spanish people to give them more money.
  
  I think it is important to note, if the social security is considered part of the budget or not. For instance in Germany it is not, however social security contributions cannot cover the rising pensions, so the German federal budget cross finances the pension fund heavily.
  As for taxation, the Spanish taxes are lower than in Germany afaik.
  
  Ah funny things. In France the social security system is supposed to be self contained and at equilibrium. But politicians have been stealing the budget for years and now says social security spending are unsustainable.
  
  According to Euronews, they are similar
  
  I'm afraid I must disagree on some points.
  While official numbers give an unemployment of 10.9, we must remember that there is a large underground economy, so actual numbers may be in the 5-6% range, or less.
  I agree on the bureaucracy, but I think its downscalable.
  Taxes I agree. They are proportionately larger than in most of the EU, and services worse.
  On the military, a hard disagree. I know several people in the military, and as in may countries, you have hawks, but most of the army is professional, and very, very neutral politically. The image of a politically active military is an old image, from the dictatorship, 50 years ago. Even then, when a coup was attempted, the majority of the armed forces shut it down. That image of the armed forces is mainly a discourse used by separatist regions for propaganda (not saying that propaganda isn't used in non separatist regions, just different), and the hard left.
  
  Taxes I agree. They are proportionately larger than in most of the EU, and services worse.
  They are actually below average
  https://www.euronews.com/business/2025/05/16/personal-average-tax-rates-in-europe-which-countries-saw-the-biggest-rise-in-2024
  Services, I guess that's more a matter of opinion, but having lived in Germany, UK and the US, I think they're OK
  
  I don't think that's right. This other link (from another commenter in this thread), also euronews, says 47%. Anecdoticaly I get €1800 in my bank account every month, but cost my employer €3200.
  Kinda tricky to compare taxes from one country to another.
  
  Income tax is one thing, social security is another and the taxes your employer pays as business are another. You're just conflating them all. Some countries have lower social security contributions but have no universal health insurance or you just have to pay out of pocket or it's tied to your work, etc. It's not apples to apples
  
  Remember that unemployment rate here counts only people inscribed in the unemployment services. I don't think half of them are working illegally, at best that would be a rounding error.
  Downsizing the bureaucracy would take many years, since public servants 'cannot be fired' (bit of an oversimplification, but the reality in practice), and would take some strong political will, which we lack in Spain.
  And about the armed forces, I know some ex-military that are kinda left-leaning, but the average is absolutely right leaning (from straight up nazis, to 'apoliticals' that if you talk with them for a short while will let go some racist, homophobic, or generally reactionary comments very casually). And that's the rank and file, if you go to the higher ups you'll find, well, as many fascist as you can expect from a military that wasn't purged or rehabilitated after a fascist regime.
  Even then, when a coup was attempted, the majority of the armed forces shut it down
  Do you mean the coup that the king himself organized so he could stop it afterwards to come out as the hero that saved the day while also putting some fear in the population?? That coup d'état 'attempt'??
- I can see a 5% spending spree being needed right now to quickly get us up and running to counter the threat Russia poses, but as little as possible should be spent on US equipment.
  
  5% of the fedaral budget or 5% of the BIP?
  That's a huge difference. It often gets conflated in the discussion.
  
  GDP
- Just invest in European headquarterd R&D and Infra and classify as defense spending… who the fuck cares. This spending can benefit European companies a lot, plus it only takes 3 more years and then we can tone it down again… :-)
- We live in a world where governments don’t care about human rights, the rules of war, or rules-based trade. Without a credible defence and a strong economy, you will all be at the mercy of the US, China, and Russia. If the war in Ukraine wasn’t enough to convince you, the Trump administration should be. It’s also not wasted money if you invest in the domestic defense industry. And we’ve spent at this level before without invading people. But if you think it always leads to invasions, you should be even more worried about increased military spending and military industrial capacity in Russia.
  
  Without a credible defence
  French and UK nukes, maybe EU nukes. Focus on strong Anti-Air, Anti-Missile and Drone capacities and Missiles/long range Artillery for instance.
  and a strong economy
  Which needs good infrastructure investments, good education investments and good social security to protect local consumption. All these points will be jeopardized by spending on military instead.
  If the war in Ukraine wasn’t enough to convince you
  The war in Ukraine shows that a land invasion in the 21. Century does not go well without massive troops and massive losses. Meanwhile EU countries paid more money for Russian Oil and Gas since the full scale invasion than Ukraine received in aid. If the EU had invested more in renewable energies that would have helped Ukraine by never filling the Russian war chest in the first place.
  It’s also not wasted money if you invest in the domestic defense industry
  If the products are needed and the spending is efficient. Something that at least for Germany has often not been the case and very little showed for absurd amount of spending.
  And we’ve spent at this level before without invading people.
  Which countries specifically at which times? UK and France have been invading and occupying well into the 60s and projecting military power in "friendly occupations" to steal resources until today, e.g. see West Africa.
  For Germany i found the highest spending to GDP ratio at almost 5% in the 50s and 60s in western Germany. At that time western Germany was bankrolled by the US to ensure a "bullwark" against Communism. This would not have been possible standing on its own feet.
  But if you think it always leads to invasions, you should be even more worried about increased military spending and military industrial capacity in Russia
  Russia is already invading. That is why they spending is so high. They do hope to finance it later by taking Ukrainian resources. If you think we should mimic Russia, whose resources should pay for our armies? Ukraine? Or should we invade Russia to secure their resources?
  EDIT: Also we must not forget that the EU has almost triple the population of Russia. To defend against a possible Russian threat requires more EU unity and integration, rather than more individual military spending. But for such an integration you need to invest politically, economically and socially.
  
  To add: The way the current "aid" for Ukraine is structured the ugly truth is: no matter which side wins the war - they will break apart and sell Ukraine in chunks.
  Russia is obvious to most, but the western aid is not free of charge either (as is projected so often). They will take their aid agencies and carve up the most important industries Ukraine has: Agriculture, some mining and High-purity neon gas for chip producion. The golden straight jacket. Is it better than getting conquered by Russia: YES. We are not the saintly helpers our leaders would want us to think we are.
  The US and the EU WILL be recuperating their costs from the ukrainian people. There will be an economic plundering akin to Greece - even if they win.
  
  French and UK nukes
  You can’t rely on another country starting a nuclear war to protect your country’s territorial integrity. And would you really want to use nuclear weapons in response to a conventional attack? It would in effect render the planet uninhabitable for humans for a long while.
  …very little showed for absurd amount of spending
  Spending inefficiencies are an issue that would need to be addressed, and spending and industrial capacity would need to be increased gradually.
  Which countries specifically at which times?
  I was wrong. Sweden was at 4% for a little while in the sixties.
  If you think we should mimic Russia, whose resources should pay for our armies?
  I don’t think we should mimic Russia. I think we should help the Ukraine defend itself, so that Russia’s way of doing things doesn’t pay off. I also think that we should have a credible conventional defense for when they’re done in the Ukraine and start invading the Baltic countries. In order to do this, spending has to increase.
  To defend against a possible Russian threat requires more EU unity and integration, rather than more individual military spending.
  Ideally, spending, R&D, and manufacturing should be coordinated across the EU. This is however not realistic. The EU can’t even agree on increasing sanctions. Euro sceptics are the largest party in Germany, France, and Italy. And they’re becoming more and more popular everywhere. A credible defense seems difficult without European integration, but I don’t think it’s something we can rely upon.

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