Trump insists Spain deserves a reprimand for its defense spending.

He asserts that Pedro Sánchez's government "has not been loyal to NATO" and that what it has done "is very bad."

US President Donald Trump has once again taken aim at the Spanish government over disagreements over the 5% of GDP military spending target agreed upon at the NATO leaders' summit held in late June in The Hague, Netherlands.

"Spain has not been loyal to NATO (...) I think they should be reprimanded for that . I think what they've done is very bad, but it's their business, it's NATO's business, and it's Spain's business," he told reporters during a bilateral lunch with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House.

At the summit in the Netherlands, Spain confirmed its support for the declaration establishing a 5% defense spending threshold by 2035, following a letter from Allied Secretary General Mark Rutte, who gave Spain more flexibility to meet its capability targets without being bound by a specific figure.

NATO insists that this does not translate into an opt-out clause and emphasizes that Spain will have to invest more than 3% to meet its security obligations to the organization. The Spanish government reiterates that these commitments can be achieved by dedicating only 2.1% of GDP to the military budget and argues that Rutte's "interpretative" letter allows Spain to disengage from the 5% threshold.