Trump Orders Trade Halt With Spain and Revives Greenland Claim
President Trump ordered his Treasury Secretary to halt all trade with Spain, branding it “a terrible partner in NATO” over its refusal to meet the 5% spending target — “Don’t even talk to them. They’re hopeless” — and revived his insistence that the United States should control Greenland from Denmark. Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez shrugged it off, saying their conversation was “very cordial” and covered “the World Cup and golf”, not spending. Trump also held the first meeting between a US president and Syria’s new leader at a NATO summit.
The trade threat is theatre with real edges: Trump made an identical one in March that never took effect, because EU rules bar the United States from singling out a single member state — but the willingness to say it at a unity summit is the point, a reminder that the alliance holds at his pleasure. Denmark’s reply on Greenland was flat: “of course not for sale.” The Syria meeting cut the other way — Trump, meeting President al-Sharaa, a former al-Qaida fighter now courting the West, praised how fast Syria had “turned around” and signalled he may lift it from the US terror-sponsor list. Watch whether the Spain threat is ever enacted, and what sanctions relief follows for Damascus.