Trump Assails Spain After NATO Meeting

President Trump said Wednesday that he was leaving the NATO summit with "a little bit different" view of NATO after seeing the "unbelievable ... love" and "passion" world leaders showed for their countries, reports the Guardian. That generous view didn't extend to Spain, which wouldn't agree to commit to spending 5% of its GDP annually on defense. The AP reports that Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez "stood conspicuously aside from other leaders in the summit family photo" and reiterated after the meeting that Spain couldn't go above 2%. Trump implied there could be tariff consequences for such a stance, per the Guardian:

• "They want to stay at 2%. I think it's terrible. ... You're the only country that is not paying. I don't know what the problem is. ... We'll make it up. You know ... we're negotiating with Spain on a trade deal. We're going to make them pay twice as much. And I'm actually serious about that."

Bloomberg reports that EU member states (Spain is one) aren't individually negotiating with the US ahead of a July 9 deadline; instead, the European Commission is overseeing the talks. Trump indicated he would sidestep that process. "I'm going to negotiate directly with Spain. I'm going to do it myself," Trump insisted. "They're going to pay, they'll pay more money this way."