A senior figure in Spain’s government has offered a blunt assessment of President Trump and Israel’s war on Iran, as Madrid positions itself among Washington’s loudest Western critics of the escalation.
Ernest Urtasun, Spain’s Minister of Culture, told Channel 4 News yesterday that US allies ‘need to say “no”, need to say “stop”‘ and argued it was ‘completely useless’ to try to win Trump over. His remarks came in the wake of a public spat between Trump and Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, earlier this week.
Sanchez drew Trump’s ire after declining to support the war and stating publicly: “We will not be complicit in something that is bad for the world and that is also contrary to our values and interests simply out of fear of reprisals from someone.”
The disagreement then escalated into threats from the US president, who suggested Spain should be treated like a hostile actor rather than a NATO partner. Speaking from the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump said that ‘Spain has been terrible’ and claimed he had instructed the Treasury to ‘cut off all dealings with Spain’.
Even so, Spain’s government has not signaled any intention of reversing course, despite the pressure coming from the head of the world’s most powerful military and largest economy.
Spain’s stance is consistent with the approach it has taken in other recent conflicts. During Israel’s war on Gaza, Sanchez’s government supported aid flotillas that sought to challenge Israel’s blockade of the Palestinian territory.
Throughout that period, Madrid repeatedly pointed to international humanitarian law—an argument Urtasun returned to on Thursday night, telling Channel 4: “I think theres a moment where democratic countries who believe in international law and multilateralism have to stand up, there’s no other choice.”
Urtasun also warned about the broader consequences of allowing the US and Israel to ignore the same international obligations other countries are expected to follow, questioning what kind of global order the Trump administration is aiming for.
He added: “If we just accept, one after another, all the vulnerations and dismissals of international law, what kind of world are we going to build in the 21st Century?”
Urtusun then pushed for other Western governments to act more forcefully to halt the violence, insisting: “At a certain point we have to say ‘no’, we have to say ‘stop’.”
He was equally scathing about leaders he believes attempt to flatter Trump in hopes of influencing him, saying: “Theres a growing sense at an EU level that its completely useless to continue appealing to Donald Trump’s vanity or personal interests.
“You cannot accept to play down your own values and your own interests just because you want to please Donald Trump.”
Spain is not alone in Europe in calling for restraint as the conflict threatens to widen. The UK, for its part, ultimately permitted bombing sorties to fly from US bases on British soil after initially resisting, following pressure from Washington.
Urtasun argued that Spain’s political memory of past US-led military action remains strong, saying: “Like the UK, in Spain, there’s a very strong memory with what happened with the illegal war of aggression to Iraq in 2004. We learned from that lesson and we’re not going to make that mistake again.”
Sanchez has likewise shown no indication of softening his position, summarizing it on Wednesday as being ‘no to war’, after Trump again criticized Spain from the Oval Office.
“Spain has been terrible,” he said to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Tuesday. “We’re going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don’t want anything to do with Spain,” Trump added.
Sanchez responded in a national address by reframing the debate around legality and peace: “The question is not if we are on the side of the ayatollahs – nobody is. The question is whether we are in favour of peace and international legality.
“You cannot answer one illegality with another, because that is how the great catastrophes of humanity begin.”