MADRID: Spain hit back at Donald Trump on Friday after the US President suggested expelling the country from NATO for failing to meet his ramped-up defense spending target.
In June, the 32-nation military alliance agreed to massively boost defense spending to five percent of annual economic output over the next decade under pressure from Trump.
But Spain, which was NATO’s lowest defense spender in relative terms last year, insisted it would not need to hit the headline figure.
“We had one laggard, it was Spain,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday.
“They have no excuse not to do this, but that’s all right. Maybe you should throw them out of NATO, frankly.”
Government sources said on Friday that “Spain is a committed and full member of NATO. And it meets its capacity targets as much as the United States.”
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has argued that Spain should meet its capacity objectives rather than fixed spending targets, including cybersecurity and the environment in his calculations.
The Spanish opposition pounced on the stir caused by Trump’s remarks to criticize Sanchez late on Thursday.
The main conservative opposition’s leader, Alberto Nunez Feijoo, wrote on X that “Spain is a credible, proud member and committed to NATO. And we will remain so. The problem is Sanchez.”
“He can’t be trusted, but that should not hold the country back. Our nation should not have to pay for his frivolity and irresponsibility,” the Popular Party leader said.
Far-right leader Santiago Abascal, who heads Spain’s third-largest political force Vox, said on X that Sanchez “further destroys national interests and seriously harms our security.”
“Sanchez is the greatest calamity Spain has had in a long time.”
Spain says ‘committed to NATO’ after Trump expulsion threat
https://arab.news/8wmmd
Spain says ‘committed to NATO’ after Trump expulsion threat
Four more US deportees arrive in Eswatini: lawyer, official
- Two of the newly arrived deportees are from Somalia, one from Tanzania and one from Sudan
- The four arrived at the maximum-security Matsapha Correctional Center
MBABANE, Eswatini: Four more men deported from the United States under Washington’s scheme to expel undocumented migrants have arrived in the southern African kingdom of Eswatini, a lawyer and a prison official said Thursday.
The tiny country took in 15 men last year as part of US deals with several African nations for them to accept migrants under a third-country deportation program that has been widely criticized by rights groups.
Two of the newly arrived deportees are from Somalia, one from Tanzania and one from Sudan, US-based migration lawyer Alma David, who represents some of the other detainees, told AFP.
The four arrived at the maximum-security Matsapha Correctional Center, outside the capital, late Wednesday, an officer said on condition of anonymity.
“They are in perfect health,” the officer told AFP. “They are currently being oriented by the social welfare and health departments.”
The facility was preparing to receive around 140 more deportees, the official said.
According to a document revealed by Human Rights Watch in September and seen by AFP, Eswatini agreed to take 160 deportees in exchange for funds to build its border and migration management capacity.
Eswatini, Africa’s last absolute monarchy, confirmed in November that it had received around $5.1 million from the United States to accept the deportees.
Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Rwanda and South Sudan have also accepted US deportees. Cameroon reportedly received 17 African nationals deported from the United States this year.
Eswatini authorities say they are only holding the deportees while arrangements are finalized for their repatriation.
One of the men sent to Eswatini, a 62-year-old Jamaican who had reportedly completed a murder sentence in the United States, was sent back to the Caribbean island nation in September.
Lawyers and civil society groups in Eswatini have gone to court to challenge the legality of the detentions, arguing that the deportees are being held “indefinitely” without charges.
