Trump threatens to cut off trade with Spain and renews Greenland demand at NATO summit
At the NATO summit in Ankara, President Trump called Spain a “terrible partner” and said he had told Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to “cut it off,” threatening to end US trade with the country. He tied the complaint to Spain’s refusal earlier this year to let US forces use its bases for operations against Iran. In the same appearance he repeated his call for US acquisition of Greenland, the autonomous Danish territory.
European officials treated the remarks as rhetoric rather than policy. Spain’s government noted that trade is conducted by private firms, not states, and that its EU membership would make singling it out difficult; the EU reiterated that Greenland’s future is for Greenlanders and Denmark to decide. A president cannot unilaterally halt commerce with an allied economy without legal authority and tariff machinery, so the immediate effect is diplomatic friction rather than a concrete trade break.
The comments underscore the strain running through the summit, where Trump has aired frustration over allied defense spending and what he described as limited European support during the recent US-Iran fighting.