[Trump wants to kick him out of NATO]
Recently, the U.S. political news website reported that Trump is grading NATO allies: those with low defense spending, minimal contributions to NATO's collective defense, and insufficient support for the United States during the Iran-Iraq war will be directly labeled as "bad kids" and subjected to punitive measures. As for how exactly these penalties would be carried out, the Trump administration has not yet made a final decision. Reports suggest possible actions may include restricting military cooperation and withdrawing some U.S. troops from the country.
However, based on the criteria Trump has set, Spain appears to be the primary target. At last year's NATO summit, nearly all countries pledged to raise their defense budgets to 5% of GDP—only Spain refused to make such a commitment, maintaining its current level at 2%, which greatly infuriated Trump. He explicitly stated that Spain’s stance was unfair to other NATO members and vowed to punish the country. This year, Spain went further by openly criticizing America’s war against Iran and even refused to provide bases for U.S. military operations—this only intensified Trump’s anger. In short, Spain’s image in Trump’s eyes has become extremely poor.
On April 24, a Pentagon official told Reuters that one of the proposed punitive measures under consideration includes suspending Spain’s NATO membership status. If implemented, this would effectively mean expelling Spain from NATO.
Yet this also highlights an important point: previously, due to lack of support from NATO members, Trump frequently ranted about quitting NATO. But judging from his current actions, he clearly has no intention of leaving NATO—those earlier statements were clearly just empty rhetoric.
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1863349653493888/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.