BALANCE TRADE DEFICIT

“It comes at a moment when Spain has emerged almost improbably as the most outspoken voice in all of Europe, challenging the direction of American foreign policy. Just weeks before this trip, Spain took the extraordinary step of closing its airspace to US military aircraft involved in the war in Iran and denied Washington the use of the Rota and Morón military bases in southern Spain. Trump threatened to cut off trade with Madrid. Secretary of State Rubio accused Spanish leaders of bragging about it.”

“The international order is crumbling into disarray, she said, adding that both China and Spain are nations of principle and integrity, and should cooperate closely to resist any regression toward the law of the jungle. Later, Sánchez met with NPC Standing Committee Chairman Zhao Leji and Premier Li Qiang, and a set of 13, I've also heard 15 bilateral agreements were signed on education, technology, sports, and cultural exchange.”

“It is true that Spain has some comparative advantages when it comes for promoting cooperation with Latin America, because the Spanish diplomatic service, Spanish companies, Spanish academia, we all have very intense networks there. We have a lot of knowledge of what's going on on the ground there. And so it's just natural that, for example, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a dialogue. They have concluencies on Latin America regularly. They talk about these things because they have a common interest there.”

“Bilateral goods trade exceeded 55 billion last year, up nearly 10 percent, and yet the trade deficit keeps widening. China now accounts for a staggering 74 percent of Spain's total trade gap. So what is Sánchez actually up to? Is this a sophisticated bid for strategic autonomy, a bid for a Spanish brand of leverage between Washington and Beijing? Or is it, as one analyst put it, an increasingly one-sided and unbalanced pilgrimage?”

“I think we can characterize this strategy mainly by two things. One is pragmatism. He's been very, very pragmatic in his approach to China. He avoids this kind of idealistic or wishful thinking narratives about China, the global order. He thinks that China is a highly successful and powerful authoritarian system with a model of state capitalism. This creates clear challenges, of course, the US was talking about that, but it also generates significant opportunities. Not only in socioeconomic terms, but also when we talk about addressing the main challenges for the international community. It's like climate change, governance and proliferations.”

“On Monday at Tsinghua University, he delivered a speech defending multilateralism, calling the EU trade deficit unsustainable and to the astonishment of some, describing Spain as a country that recognizes China is rebuilding its greatness and is destined to play a vital role in the future. He called on Beijing to do more to push the adherents to international law and to end conflicts in Lebanon, Iran, Gaza, and Ukraine, especially now that the United States has decided to withdraw from many of these fronts, he said.”

“This is good because you have the infrastructure there, you have the knowledge there, people there, and now you have again another foreign car company that is willing to invest there and put this back to motion, back to track, so this is good. This is great. This is very welcome, but again, the levels in the details because the actual economic impact for the Spanish society is very different, whether you localize or not, for example, your value change, whether you employ or not local labor force, so this is significant.”

“Taking this open European vocal, European stance against Trump, I think the Sánchez government hopes that it could mobilize domestic support for this government, and this could mobilize support for the incoming election. We are still having local elections, regional elections in Andalusia next month, which is the most populated region in Spain. We are having general election next year. Also, the fact that Trump is creating this domestic opportunity for Sánchez, and he is also taking advantage of that.”