Connect three

Madrid and Brussels hope to prevent a trade war from exploding when Donald Trump's 90-day suspension of increased tariffs expires in July, writes columnist Mark Nayler

Mark Nayler

Malaga

Thursday, 17 April 2025, 14:38

A week after Pedro Sánchez visited China, Spain's economy minister Carlos Cuerpo was dispatched to Washington D.C. to meet with his American counterpart Scott Bessent. The purpose of both visits was the same: to assure the Chinese and American governments, respectively, that the EU is a reliable trading partner.

The EU's trade commissioner, Maros Sefcovic, also visited D.C. this week to convey the same message. With all this frenzied diplomacy, Madrid and Brussels hope to prevent a trade war from exploding when Donald Trump's 90-day suspension of increased tariffs expires in July.

As is fitting for a country situated almost exactly halfway between the US and China, Spain is positioning itself as the European referee between two heavyweights. The danger, of course, is that it will receive a battering in the process. In fact that metaphor is not quite right, because the EU itself is a heavyweight: so there are three boxers in the ring, one of whom is also the referee and doesn't want to fight. Or so he says.

Cuerpo emerged vaguely optimistic after his meeting with Bessent in the White House. The Spanish minister is "convinced" that Spain and the EU will be able to reach a trading agreement that is "balanced, fair and beneficial to both sides". But there are three parties to consider here, not just two. Sánchez said the same thing to Xi Jinping last week, which raises the problem of how Spain and the EU can resist taking sides with either of the two aggressors.

Bessent warned last week that the EU would be "cutting [its] own throat" if it refused to increase tariffs on Chinese goods, as it already has on electric cars. That could be interpreted as a veiled threat of American retaliation, also with tariffs, against a China-friendly Europe. The US treasury secretary also used this week's meeting to nag Cuerpo about Spain's low contributions to Nato, no doubt on Trump's insistence.

The trade tensions between China, the US and EU suggest that there are deeper factors at work here - that fundamentally, this is a dispute about dominance. In 2021, two years before his death at the age of 100, Henry Kissinger stressed the need for the US and China to agree on a new global order: "If we don't get to that point," warned the veteran diplomat, "then we will be in a pre-World War One-type situation in Europe, in which there are perennial conflicts that get solved on an immediate basis but one of them gets out of control."

Spain is well-positioned, both literally and figuratively, to help keep the tariff situation under control. But if Kissinger is right, such issues will keep occurring until Trump and Jinping reach a broader agreement. Despite Spain's valiant attempts to connect the two countries via Europe, it is hard to imagine what that would even look like.

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