US President Donald Trump on Tuesday sharply criticised both the United Kingdom and Spain for failing to fully back his military assault on Iran, going as far as threatening to end all trade with Spain.
"I'm not happy with the UK," Trump said, adding of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer: "This is not Winston Churchill that we're dealing with." Britain, a close US ally throughout both world wars and in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, chose not to join the US-Israeli assault on Iran that began on Saturday.
Starmer did, however, authorise US fighter jets to use two UK air bases for what he described as a "specific and limited defensive purpose", one in Gloucestershire in western England and the other at the joint UK-US Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean. Starmer made clear that the United States was not authorised to use UK bases in Cyprus, one of which was subsequently struck by an Iranian-made drone.
Trump expressed frustration at the restrictions placed on where US forces could operate. "It's taken three, four days for us to work out where we can land. There would have been much more convenient landing there, as opposed to flying many extra hours," he said, in an apparent reference to Diego Garcia.
Trump also returned to his long-running criticism of Starmer over the Chagos Islands, where Diego Garcia is located. Starmer had agreed to return the islands, whose people were expelled by Britain, to Mauritius, and to lease the base instead. "I will say the UK has been very, very uncooperative with that stupid island that they have," Trump said, speaking alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the White House.
Trump reserved his sharpest words for Spain, where the left-wing government of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has refused to allow the United States to use Spanish military bases, long used by US forces, to carry out strikes on Iran. "Spain has been terrible," Trump said. He added that he had asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to cut off all dealings with Spain. "So we're going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don't want anything to do with Spain," Trump said.
Trump also pointed to Sanchez's public refusal to join fellow NATO allies in committing to boost defence spending to five percent of GDP, a target Trump has pushed hard, arguing the United States carries too much of the alliance's financial burden. It remains unclear what legal authority Trump would have to unilaterally end trade with Spain. The Supreme Court has already struck down his use of emergency powers to impose arbitrary tariffs on other countries.
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares had earlier stated that his government would only permit the use of Naval Base Rota and Moron Air Base for activities consistent with the United Nations Charter.
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