<
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/09/why-spains-prime-minister-has-broken-ranks-in-europe-and-dared-to-confront-trump>
"Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, rarely utters the words “Donald Trump”
in public. Since the US president took office, Sánchez has typically referred
to the US administration and its president without explicitly naming him. This
was initially interpreted as a calculation designed to avoid personal
confrontation, but even without using Trump’s name, Sánchez has managed to
deliver harsher criticism of the US president’s aggression than any of his
fellow European leaders.
This week, Sánchez did not wait for a joint EU statement to issue judgment on
the US’s illegal military intervention to capture the Venezuelan president,
Nicolás Maduro: he swiftly joined Latin American countries in condemning it. A
few hours later he went even further, saying the operation in Caracas
represented “a terrible precedent and a very dangerous one [which] reminds us
of past aggressions, and pushes the world toward a future of uncertainty and
insecurity, similar to what we already experienced after other invasions driven
by the thirst for oil”.
Sanchez was speaking in Paris on Tuesday after a meeting of the “coalition of
the willing” for Ukraine. Indeed, he made the case that on Venezuela, Ukraine
and Gaza he was applying the same reasoning in defence of an international
order “based on the observance of fair rules, not on the law of the jungle”.
He also pushed back against US sabre-rattling over Greenland: “Spain, believing
in peace, diplomacy and the United Nations, cannot, of course, accept this,
just as we cannot accept the explicit threat to the territorial integrity of a
European state, as is the case with Denmark.”
If Sánchez is sounding more outraged than other European leaders, even
progressive ones, then one reason is the influence of Spain’s far-left parties,
including Sumar, the junior party in his governing coalition. But he is also
drawing on broad social and even political consensus in Spain on many of these
international issues."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
