A day after President Donald Trump announced that he would end all trade with Spain in response to its decision not to allow the U.S. to use its bases for operations to strike Iran, I woke up Wednesday morning and went to the Drudge Report— the go-to place for all things Trump Resistance — to see if the Spanish prime minister’s response was making headlines. Sure enough, there was Pedro Sánchez’s photo in the center column above headlines that linked to articles about a televised address to the nation in which he doubled down on his opposition to the U.S. operation in Iran.
“It’s naïve to believe that democracy or respect among nations can spring from ruins, or to think that blind and servile obedience is a form of leadership. On the contrary, I believe this position is leadership,” Sánchez said. “We will not be complicit in something that is bad for the world and contrary to our values and interests simply out of fear of reprisals from someone."
Related: Spain Gets Owned: Trump Moves to Cut All U.S. Trade
There was also a link on Drudge to an article with the headline “Spain’s Leader, Rejecting Iran War, Escalates Long Feud With Trump” in the New York Times, the same paper that recently published an op-ed by Sánchez in which he defended his decision to grant amnesty to 500,000 illegal migrants. The reporter, Jason Horowitz, wrote, “For more than a year, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain has positioned himself as the leader of Europe’s left-wing resistance to President Trump." The profuse praise that Alex Soros of the Open Society Foundations has poured onto Sánchez confirms the truth of this statement. Soros called Sánchez a “true leader” after the mass amnesty plan was announced and was similarly giddy about Spain barring the U.S. from using its bases:
Why aren’t more Europeans standing up to an illegal war! Same with Canada! They make nice speeches at conferences, but do little. Spain is becoming the leader of the free world! https://t.co/8OBAEjwtkX
— Alex Soros (@AlexanderSoros) March 2, 2026
For the extreme left, the nation freeing people from tyranny and eliminating genocidal threats is not the leader of the free world; instead, they praise the country that tries to undermine that nation as the leader. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent fired back against such betrayal, saying Spain's decision on the bases “puts American lives at risk.”
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron expressed support for Sánchez after what he called Trump’s “recent threats of economic coercion against Spain," and European Council President António Costa said that "the EU will always ensure that the interests of its member states are fully protected.”
So, the storyline early Wednesday appeared to be that one of the leaders of the anti-Trump resistance was standing firm amid the president’s trade threats. However, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shifted the narrative to "Spain surrenders" when she told reporters: "With respect to Spain, I think they heard the president’s message yesterday loud and clear, and it’s my understanding, over the past several hours, they’ve agreed to cooperate with the U.S. military."
The Spanish government almost immediately denied the claim. “Not a single comma has changed, and I have no idea whatsoever what they might be referring to,” Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares told the Hora25 radio program.
So who was telling the truth?
A must-read article titled "Sánchez’ Military Veto Against the United States Was a Bluff" by Spanish journalist Itxu Díaz makes a very convincing case that Sánchez and the members of his government are the real liars.
Díaz reports that, after Albares' comments, a group of X users noticed that flight RCH846, a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III, had departed from Rota Air Base in Cádiz at 8:45 p.m. Although it landed at Italian Sigonella Air Base, it took off again and headed for the Middle East. Díaz continues:
At least one other American military aircraft destined for the Iran war operated normally from Spanish bases in the early hours of Thursday. Once again, the Sánchez government’s categorical stance proved to be a staged performance for domestic consumption and to promote Sánchez’s image in the international press, while, behind closed doors, Spain sided with the United States and bowed to Trump’s dictates.
As for why Sánchez would feel the need to do this, Diaz writes that the prime minister tried "to revive the ‘no to war’ stance against Trump and the Spanish right, shifting attention from his government’s corruption to Iran amid the regional election campaign in Castile and León, where polls predict an unprecedented disaster for the [his Socialist] PSOE. ... Pedro Sánchez’s ‘no to war’ stance lasted less than 48 hours. Now Europe and the United States know the true value of the Spanish prime minister’s word."
More details are sure to come, but with each passing day, Santiago Abascal, leader of the conservative populist party Vox, seems increasingly vindicated in his pinned X tweet: "Mr. Sánchez, you are a scoundrel, a corrupt man, and a traitor."
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