Why Pedro Sánchez is Swimming Against the Political Current: the Secrets of a Unique Foreign Policy that Refuses to Align with Trump.

Former Spanish Foreign Minister Rafael Garcia-Margallo considers it contradictory that Sánchez refuses, on the one hand, to further increase spending in NATO while demanding, on the other hand, more European strategic autonomy in defense matters. “It’s like when you want your tenant to renovate the elevator, but when you are told how much it costs, you refuse to pay. Others may think you are losing credibility,” he laments.

“Furthermore, the president has chosen to confront Donald Trump and is obsessed with openly distancing himself from all those who, in his eyes, embody his spirit, like when he now explains to us that large technology companies want to dominate the world through social networks,” he adds. An obsession that, according to the former minister, adds to Sánchez’s “pronounced taste” for making foreign policy “a personal matter.”

On this point, Garcia-Margallo denounces the fact that the president has unilaterally altered the key points of diplomacy for a long time, which were once defined through informal meetings between the government and the opposition held in Madrid every two or three months, but are no longer happening today. These decisions, according to him, pose risks to Spain’s foreign policy line, as consensus in international politics, not only between the government and the opposition but also between the president himself and diplomatic services, breaks away from an essential rule since the return of democracy after Franco.

“Officials in different sectors of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are unaware of certain decisions, as happened with the significant shift imposed by the president in the Maghreb, which broke the consensus on Western Sahara by suggesting Moroccan autonomy,” the former minister points out. Until then, Madrid had always defended a negotiated solution within the framework of the UN, including holding a referendum. But the unexpected turn by the government, seeking to please Morocco, led to a crisis with Algeria.

In Spain and elsewhere, it is almost a tradition: leaders gradually turn away from domestic politics, where the blows rain, during their second term. The former minister believes this is the case with the current occupant of La Moncloa. According to him, Sánchez is convinced that “it is easier to appear where no one challenges you than to deal with the problems we have at home.”

Considered by both supporters and detractors as one of the boldest politicians in Spain, the Socialist leader came to power in 2018 after defeating the then-president Mariano Rajoy through a vote of censure, a first in Spain’s history. He won by surprise with the support of left-wing forces as well as nationalist and separatist parties to “regenerate the institutions,” following the conviction of the Popular Party for corruption.

To this narrative has been added, in recent months, a continuous flow of judicial controversies affecting the closest circle of the Socialist president. The investigation targeting his wife, Begoña Gómez, for alleged influence peddling related to her professional activity and arrival at La Moncloa, led him to announce, in a “letter to the citizens,” that he is taking a few days to reflect on whether to continue his mandate. This pause, which ends without political consequences, earns Sánchez the nickname “Drama King” from the British magazine The Economist.