Spain is entering an inflection point that goes beyond mere political rotation to enter into a redefinition of its strategic identity. A redefinition that implies the involvement of the Atlantic and European cores to approach a pole that combines effective authoritarianism with national populism.
The fourth official visit of the President Pedro Sánchez in China in just four years, scheduled from April 11 to 15, 2026, to meet again in Beijing with You are Jinping y Li QiangIt is not a routine courtesy call, but a calculated move to cement “mutual strategic trust” on the issue of inversion and technology.
Right now and now after this event in Asia, on the 17th and 18th of April, the President will host the Global Progressive Mobilization initiative in Barcelona by invitation. Claudia Sheinbaum, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Gustavo Petro y Yamandú Bearsreinforcing the unequivocal idea of striving for a new geopolitical conflict associated with the traditional capitals of the West.
This trend is deeply ambiguous and dangerous for a sovereign nation and a founding member of the European Union and the United Kingdom, whose natural place must be irrevocably on the side of liberal democracies.
Because of the many imperfections that are present in the existing crisis, Western liberal democracies operate according to basic rules of accounting, separation of property and freedom of expression that are systematically ignored in Beijing or Tehran, as in the semi-authoritarian Latin American regimes that Moncloa seems to have chosen as preferred partners.
While democracies can criticize and correct themselves from within thanks to their institutional counterbalances, illiberal dictatorships and populism enable them to do what would be unacceptable in the West: massive surveillance, selective repression, systemic corruption. or an alarming tolerance for organized crime.
The costs of these strategic choices are visible and quantifiable in the area of defense, where Sánchez has become a chronic dissident of the Atlantic alliance.
At the end of June 2025, Spain was the only one of the three countries to directly achieve the new target of 5% of GDP in the military sector aimed at Donald Trump and supported by a large majority of members.
To keep turnover around 2.1%, the government favors a specific “social model”, more propaganda than real, in exchange for collective deterrence, sending a signal of weakness at a time of maximum global volatility.
These tensions reached a critical point in March 2026, when the executive denied the use of the Rota and Morón bases for joint and Israeli operations against Iranian peacekeepers.
This decision not only forced the Pentagon to withdraw its KC-135 refueling aircraft, but turned Spain from a fairy-tale ally into a strategic situation, sparking orange riots and unions in parts of Washington that threatened the stability of our economy.
The same logic of Islam and divergence manifests itself in the European Union, where Spain seems to fall more often than the southern wing.
Between France and Germany, the leaders are below Emmanuel Macron y Friedrich MerzEncouraging “strategic autonomy” that seeks to strengthen Europe’s defense pillar without eroding ties with NATO, Spain has decided to slow collective rearmament and oppose the necessary stay in the migration pact.
A clear example of this desconexión occurred in 2026, when the government by decree approved the extraordinary regularization of more than a million illegal migrants.
This position, presented in the framework of humanitarian and economic rhetoric, directly shocks the consensus raised in Brussels regarding the need for faster returns and the externalization of borders in order to preserve the integrity of the common space.
For the European institutions, this type of unilateral decisions generates a systemic risk of “trigger effect” which overloads the welfare systems of the entire continent.
Open confrontation with powers such as the United States and Israel, which guarantee the security of the North Atlantic and are first-class trading partners, represents a strategic mistake that threatens national interests.
With regard to the legitimate criticism that its actions in Gaza or Lebanon may provoke, Israel forms part of a common front against shared positions such as radical Islamism and Iranian expansionism.
To part with these historical monikers right there in the presence of leaders like Claudia Sheinbaum is quite an achievement.
Sheinbaum’s mandate in Mexico coexists with high levels of violence under the “abrazos no balazos” policy and serious allegations of infiltration of institutions by the drug trade.
Además, the anti-Western rhetoric of Gustavo Peter in Colombia it worries any observer who compromises the values of democratic liberalism.
Spain will reap no tangible benefits in line with China exporting massive surveillance technology to repressive regimes, Iran’s finances proxy terrorists and Latin American populism are eroding from within the derecho state.
The government must rectify the matter immediately saying it is in the national interest It does not reside in rhetorical multilateralism or the ideological embrace of the authoritarian global South.
The real sovereignty and prosperity of Spain depends on the strong defense of the European Union, OTAN and the transatlantic alliance. As the history of the twentieth century has shown, democracies, imperfect as they may seem, are infinitely superior to any dictation, precisely because of the efficiency they claim in their propaganda or in their infrastructures.
Spain needs, and urgently needs, a leader who understands this reality before the international climate becomes irreversible.
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