A note released by the US State Department on Friday about the conversation with the Spanish Secretary of State for Foreign and Global Affairs, Diego Martínez Belío, indicates that “Undersecretary Landau reaffirmed the strength of the partnership between the United States and Spain and discussed deepening ties across a wide range of mutual interests”.

The summary of the conversation between the two diplomats mentions “strengthening cooperation on migration”, a chapter in which Spain has had an agreement with the United States since 2023 to legally receive Latin American migrants and thus curb the arrival of irregular migrants in the United States.

The United States joins the request made this week by the Secretary General of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), Mark Rutte, who referred to Spain’s “desire” to invest 2% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in military spending “as soon as possible”, in a statement in Warsaw, which led the Spanish government to point out that it still doesn’t have a concrete commitment.

Speaking at a colloquium at the Warsaw School of Economics, Rutte warned that it is not just NATO’s eastern flank allies that are at risk of a Russian attack because “with Russi’s latest missile technology, the difference between an attack on Warsaw and an attack on Madrid is ten minutes”.

“We are all on the eastern flank: Amsterdam is on the eastern flank, London is on the eastern flank, even Washington is on the eastern flank,” she emphasised.

The PSOE’s Secretary for the Economy and Digital Transformation, Enma López, denied this Friday that the government is committed to achieving 2% defence spending by the summer and pointed to 2027 as the deadline for achieving this investment.

In an interview with Antena 3, quoted by EFE, López denied the NATO secretary-genera’s claim. “The first news we had was precisely this interview. That’s not what we are talking about,” he said.

After calling for rigour, he stressed that “this is not the debate on the table”, pointing out that it is not yet known whether Spain has reached 1.2% or 1.4% investment in relation to GDP.