Spain rejects White House claim it agreed to cooperate with U.S. forces amid Iran war

Spain has pushed back against the White House’s claim that it agreed to cooperate militarily with Washington amid the conflict with Iran, doubling down on its anti-war stance despite the U.S. president’s threat to sever trade ties.

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday that Madrid’s position of refusing to allow the country’s military bases to be used in the ongoing Iran war had now changed.

“With respect to Spain, I think they heard the president’s message yesterday loud and clear, and it’s my understanding, over the past several hours, they’ve agreed to cooperate with the U.S. military,” Leavitt told reporters.

“The president expects all of our European allies, of course, to cooperate in this long sought-after mission, not just for the United States but also for Europe, to crush the rogue Iranian regime.”

Spain swiftly and “categorically” rejected Leavitt’s assertion, however.

“The Spanish government’s position on the war in the Middle East … and the use of our bases has not changed at all,” Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told private radio station Cadena Ser, according to Reuters.

The chaotic messaging between two NATO allies comes shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to cut off all trade with Madrid, calling Spain “terrible” and repeating his criticism of Spain’s defense spending.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez responded on Wednesday by describing the sprawling Middle East crisis as a “disaster” and summarized his government’s position in just three words: “No to war.”

Sánchez has emerged as one of the European Union’s leading critics of U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran, having also been an outspoken critic of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Arancha González, former foreign minister of Spain, told CNBC on Thursday that Trump’s attacks on Sánchez were not the first time the U.S. president has criticized a European leader.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen have all previously been singled out by Trump.

“What do they all have in common? They have said ‘no’ or they have questioned motives by the U.S. president,” González said. She added that political leaders who stood firm were more likely to be in a better position over the long term.

González, who now serves as the Dean of the Paris School of International Affairs (PSIA) at Sciences Po, also issued a warning to Washington over Trump’s threat to sever trade ties with Madrid.

“Let me say that it would be foolish of the U.S. to have a trade embargo on a country with which it has a trade surplus. The U.S. has a trade surplus with Spain. President Trump always complains about imbalanced trade relationships. Well, here is a great trade relationship where he is a winning,” González told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Thursday.

Trump’s threat to punish Spain on trade is widely thought to be a challenging prospect to deliver on, given that the 27 EU nations negotiate trade agreements collectively.

“Spain does not have an autonomous trade policy. Spain’s trade policy is the European Union’s trade policy,” González said. “Let’s keep calm. Cool heads. This is not the first time that we have seen threats of this kind.”

Spain’s Ibex 35 index was the top performer among Europe’s major bourses on Thursday morning, up around 1.2%. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index, meanwhile, was last seen up 0.5%.

“I’m actually very positive on the fact that there has been solidarity with Spain. There has been clearly a united position that it is unacceptable to try to bully individual countries into specific political positions,” said Guntram Wolff, senior fellow at Bruegel, a Brussels-based economic think tank.

“The U.S. president can disagree with them, and you know also among Europeans we can disagree on substance, but what is not acceptable is that an individual European ally gets singled out and gets bulled,” Wolff told CNBC’s “Europe Early Edition” on Thursday.

“Europeans have learned the lessons and know that they need to stick together,” he added.