Donald Trump reveals he's 'cutting off all trade' with European country for not helping US military operation

Donald Trump has announced he's 'cutting off all trade' with Spain after the European nation refused to help the US with its military operation in the Middle East.

Speaking in the Oval Office on Tuesday, the president said: "Spain has been terrible. In fact I told Scott [likely Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent] to cut off all dealings with Spain. First of all, it started when every European nation at my request paid 5 percent which they should be doing, and everybody was enthusiastic about it, Germany, everybody, and Spain didn't do it. And now Spain actually said that we can't use their bases.

"That's alright, we can use their base if we want we can just fly in and use it, nobody's gonna tell us not to use it.

Trump continued: "But we don't have to but they were unfriendly so I told him Spain has absolutely nothing that we need other than great people, they have great people. But they don't have great leadership."

Donald Trump has hit out at Spain and revealed he's 'to cut off all dealings with Spain' (The White House via X Account/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Spain denied the US the use of its military bases to attack Iran after its prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, dubbed Israel and the US' attack on Iran as 'unilateral military action'.

They warned the two countries that they are contributing towards 'a more hostile and uncertain international order'.

Meanwhile, José Manuel Albares, Spain's foreign minister, told Telecinco: "I want to be very clear and very plain. The bases are not being used – nor will they be used – for anything that is not in the agreement [with the US], nor for anything that isn’t covered by the UN charter."

Defense minister Margarita Robles also released a statement, saying Spain's bases hadn't been used for military action.

"There is a deal with the US over these bases, but our understanding of the deal is that operations have to comply with international legal frameworks and that there has to be international support for them," she told press.

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez (Pablo Cuadra/Getty Images)

In his press conference at the Oval Office, Trump was also critical of the UK and Sir Keir Starmer after Britain initially refused to allow the US to use its military bases for the strikes on Iran, before the prime minister made a U-turn.

Referencing the much-talked about Chagos Islands deal to start with, Trump said: "That island that you read about, the lease, for whatever reason, he made a lease of the island, somebody came and took it away from him.

"And it's taken three, four days for us to work out where we can land, it would have been much more convenient landing there as opposed to flying many extra hours.

"So we are very surprised. This is not Winston Churchill that we're dealing with."

The history of Iran's conflict with the US: a timeline

As the United States and Israel launch military operations against Iran, which are focused on the regime's nuclear facilities, military infrastructure and leadership, here is a look into the history of the Middle Eastern nation's conflict with the US.

1953: The US backs the ousting of PM Mohammad Mosaddegh

In a covert operation called Operation Ajax, the British and American intelligence services joined forces to overthrow Iran’s nationalist prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, in August 1953, with the aim of retaining access to cheap oil and preventing communist expansion.

This would go on to fuel the decades-long anti-American movement in Iran.

1957-1968: Nuclear energy agreements

In 1957, Iran was given US backing to develop civilian nuclear power as part of US President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 'Atoms for Peace' program.

Just over a decade later, in 1968, the US and Iran were among the initial signatories of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which entered into force in 1970.

1970-80s: Civil unrest grows in Iran

While relations between the US and Iran appeared to be stable in the 1970s, civil unrest in the Middle Eastern nation was beginning to mount, resulting in the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Around this time, the exiled Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was permitted entry into the US for cancer treatment, triggering outrage among a group of Iranian university students who believed he had escaped justice.

They stormed the American embassy in Tehran in November in retaliation, taking 52 Americans hostage for more than a year and demanding the Shah be returned to Iran to face trial.

1980: Diplomatic ties with Iran are cut by the US

Following an unsuccessful rescue mission to retrieve the American embassy hostages in April 1980, which left eight US servicemen dead, US President Jimmy Carter cut diplomatic ties with the nation. Formal relations between the two have never been restored.

That same year, neighbouring country Iraq invaded Iran, sparking a war that would go on for eight years and kill hundreds of thousands of people on both sides.

The US backed Iraq during this conflict, providing money, training and technology.

It took 444 days to release the US embassy hostages, who were returned home in January 1981, minutes after Carter’s term ended and President Ronald Reagan was sworn into office.

Late 1980s: Tensions continue between the US and Iran

In 1984, the US added Iran to its list of state sponsors of terrorism and imposed sanctions on the country.

However, two years later, in 1986, the Reagan administration secretly sold weapons to Iran to secure the release of Americans held hostage in Lebanon by the militant group Hezbollah.

And then, in 1988, US naval cruiser the USS Vincennes mistakenly shot down an Iranian passenger jet over the Strait of Hormuz, killing all 290 people on board.

1990s: President Bill Clinton’s administration tightens sanctions

These 1995 sanctions included an oil embargo and a ban on US trade. Clinton then signed into law the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act in 1996, which penalised non-American companies that invested over $20 million annually in Iran’s oil and gas sector.

A map of the countries Iran has launched retaliatory strikes against (LADbible)

2000s: President George Bush's comments on Iran spark fury

During his State of the Union speech in 2002, President Bush described Iran, as well as North Korea and Iraq, as being part of an 'axis of evil'.

This sparked nationwide outrage in Iran due to its assistance of the US in its war against the Taliban in Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks.

2010s: President Barack Obama holds top-level contact with Iran for the first time in 30 years

In September 2013, Obama spoke by phone to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to 'offer a new chapter of engagement on the basis of mutual interests and mutual respect'.

Two months later, Iran, Germany, and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council - China, France, Russia, the UK and the US - signed an initial nuclear deal, known as the Joint Plan of Action, designed to manage crises and to ensure that Iran's nuclear programme would be exclusively peaceful.

2018: President Donald Trump restores sanctions on Iran

In 2015, the 2013 nuclear pact was expanded to the landmark Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in which Iran pledged to limit its uranium stockpile.

However, during Trump's first term of presidency in 2018, he fulfilled a campaign pledge by withdrawing the US from the JCPOA, which he called the 'worst deal ever'.

He restored the sanctions on Iran that had been lifted under the nuclear pact, and pursued a 'maximum pressure' strategy designed to drive the country’s oil exports to zero.

Then, in 2019, the US designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s most powerful military institution, a terrorist organisation.

2020s: President Joe Biden's administration arranges prisoner exchanges and sanctions waivers

When Joe Biden took office in 2021, his administration began indirect talks with Iran, but with little success.

But in 2023, a prisoner exchange deal was agreed to release five detainees. This also included a sanctions waiver for banks to transfer $6 billion of frozen Iranian funds from South Korea to Qatar for humanitarian purposes - something Republican lawmakers were highly critical of.

2025: President Donald Trump's second term brings back his 'maximum pressure' campaign

Back in office for his second term, Trump reinstated his 'maximum pressure' campaign ordering tougher enforcement of existing sanctions on Iran.

In early 2025, the US joined Israel's offensive and struck three Iranian nuclear facilities, resulting in a retaliation attack from Iran, which bombed the Al Udeid Air Base, a US military facility in Qatar.

2026: US military action is launched in Iran and Ali Hosseini Khamenei is assassinated

In late 2025, Iran was engulfed in anti-government demonstrations following the collapse of its currency. Protests demanded the end of Ali Hosseini Khamenei's rule, which resulted in authorities issuing crackdowns and restricting internet and telecommunications access.

The US-based Human Rights Activist News Agency said in a February report that more than 6,000 civilians had been killed, and more than 50,000 people arrested.

Khamenei died on February 28, aged 86, in a large-scale air attack on Iran by the US and Israel.