Trump Suggests Tossing Spain Out of NATO as a Bottom Spender

[Zorro]

Source: Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance

US President Donald Trump floated the idea that Spain could be removed from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in his latest swipe against a chronic under-spender on defense.

“Spain — you have to call them and find, why are they a laggard?” Trump said as he spoke with Finnish President Alexander Stubb on Thursday in the Oval Office. “And they’re doing well too, you know. Because of a lot of the things we’ve done, they’re doing fine. They have no excuse not to do this. But that’s all right.”

“Maybe you should throw them out of NATO, frankly,” he added.

Spain previously earned Trump’s ire when it rejected the US call at the NATO Summit in June to increase defense spending to 5% of national gross domestic product, becoming the only nation in the alliance to reject the new goal. At the time, Trump suggested he planned to double tariff rates hitting products from Spain sold into the US.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has said that abiding by the new threshold would see hundreds of millions of euros in additional defense spending which would require cuts to health care and education. His office released a statement Thursday pushing back on Trump’s remarks.

Read more: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-suggests-tossing-spain-nato-213536043.html

[Ocelot II]

1. He wanted to kick out Iceland, too (one of the founding members),

until it was pointed out to him that Iceland doesn't have any military forces but was an important base for other NATO forces.

I pointed out that several countries were close, and six or seven set to reach the target in the near future. Then there was Iceland: it has no armed forces, so would never spend 2% of its GDP on defence. It was therefore actually five out of 27 countries who had achieved the goal, rather than five out of 28, I said, thinking I may be coming across as rather nerdy with all these figures.

But this caught Trump’s interest, if not in the way I had intended. “Then what do we want with Iceland?”

Before I could say anything further, Jim Mattis came to my aid, explaining how important Nato’s bases there were for the alliance’s submarines, ships and planes: “Mr President, they’re good to have if you want to track down Russian subs.” Trump thought for a moment. “Well, then we’ll let Iceland stay a member,” he said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/04/im-leaving-trump-said-theres-no-reason-to-be-here-any-more-inside-the-meeting-that-brought-nato-to-the-brink

[slightlv]

2. Reagan and Margaret Thatcher

brought this new "Austerity" program into being. They tried it across the world and my god, look back at the mess they made globally with it. Then add on to that P2025, and you've got not "austerity" but outright poverty for everyone worldwide except for the top 1% of the global population. Thats why they're trying to put in "strongmen" dictators all across the world governments. It's the only way they can control the populations and the outflow of money from "their" coffers.

[FakeNoose]

3. I really hope Spain leaks the Epstein documents ... why hold back?

They can translate them into Spanish and Chump won't know the difference.

[Javaman]

4. Like teaching a child not to eat the crayons nt

[Eugene]

5. This is straight up reality TV show bullshit.

"You are the weakest link. Bye bye." 🤦🏿‍♂️

[pecosbob]

6. German banks squeezed Spain so hard last couple of decades I'm surprised they can afford any military expenditures.

Their economy was pretty much wiped out during the housing collapse followed by enforced austerity programs, the works. Northern Europe treats Spain and Italy like unwanted country cousins.

[travelingthrulife]

7. I wish a stroke would render him mute.