'I will say the U.K. has been very, very uncooperative
with that stupid island that they have,' said Trump
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday lashed out at Britain
and Spain for not fully backing his attack on Iran, as he threatened to end
“all trade” with Spain.
“I’m not happy with the UK,” Trump said, as he said of
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer: “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re
dealing with.”
Britain, a steadfast ally of the United States throughout
the two world wars and in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, decided not to join
the assault on Iran that Trump launched with Israel on Saturday.
Starmer said that US fighter jets could use two UK air bases
for 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 said that the United States was not authorized to
use UK bases in Cyprus, one of which was struck by an Iranian-made drone.
“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,” Trump said in apparent reference to Diego Garcia.
Trump, after a series of flip-flops, has criticized Starmer
for agreeing to return the Chagos Islands, where Diego Garcia lies and whose
people were expelled by Britain, to Mauritius and instead to lease the base.
“I will say the UK has been very, very uncooperative with
that stupid island that they have,” said Trump, who was speaking next to German
Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the White House.
Trump voiced fury at Spain, where the left-wing government
of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has not allowed the United States to attack
Iran through bases long used by US forces.
“Spain has been terrible,” Trump said, adding that he has
asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to “cut off all dealings with Spain.”
He also pointed to Sanchez’s public refusal to
join NATO allies in a pledge to boost defense spending to five percent of GDP,
a level pushed by Trump which says the United States bears too much of a
burden.
“So we’re going to cut off all trade with
Spain. We don’t want anything to do with Spain.”
It remains unclear what power Trump would have
to “end” trade with Spain, after the Supreme Court struck down his use of
emergency powers to slap arbitrary tariffs on other countries.
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares
earlier said that his government would only allow the use of the Naval Base
Rota and Moron Air Base for activities consistent with the United Nations
Charter.