‘You’ll be cutting your own throat,’ US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned countries thinking of aligning with China. The remarks were made just before Spain’s prime minister, socialist Pedro Sánchez, arrived in Beijing on Thursday with a delegation of ministers, seeking to boost trade, attract investment, and to position Spain as the EU’s chief interlocutor with China. Bessent’s threat came as no surprise. President Trump had just lifted global tariffs above 10 per cent for 90 days for everyone except China, which instead now faces a staggering 145 per cent rate. Bessent’s message couldn’t have been clearer: any friend of our enemy is an enemy.
To an extent the hostility is mutual: anti-American sentiment runs deep in Spain. There are traditionalists who have never forgotten the humiliating defeat in the Spanish-American war in 1898 which resulted in the loss of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, the last remnants of a once-great empire.
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