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Some Canadians say they are feeling kinship with Spain and reaching out on social media after the European country became the latest victim of a threatening tirade from U.S. President Donald Trump.
“We’re going to cut off all trade with Spain, we don’t want anything to do with Spain,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday.
Trump was responding to comments from Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares, who said his country would not allow the U.S. to use the bases in southern Spain for any strikes not covered by the United Nations’ charter, as part of its war on Iran.
Valérie Butters, an artist in Knowlton, Que., is one of many Canadians who took to social media to reach out to users in Spain after seeing the clip.
“Glad to have you in our club,” she wrote on Threads, saying Canada has been on Trump’s “s–t list” for over a year now. “Let us know if you need maple syrup.”
Butters told CBC News she used to feel like Canada was isolated by Trump’s tariffs and repeated threats of annexation, but has grown to feel a connection with Greenland, Denmark and other countries that have been targeted by the president.
“Now we’re a group of countries that really feel like we’re getting punched in the face,” she said. “And then I saw what happened with Spain, and I’m like, ‘Hey, guys, I get it … You’re not alone.”
Butters said she is seeing similar sentiments online from people in other countries who describe feeling exhausted and burned out by American actions. She added that it can be a “scary time” to live so close to the U.S. border.
“Every day you wake up, there’s something else,” she said. “I guess we’re just sticking together through posts.”
WATCH | Trump says he will ‘cut off all trade’:
Trump threatens to cut trade ties with Spain
‘We’re going to cut off all trade with Spain,’ U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday, after Spain announced yesterday that the U.S. will not be using joint military bases on its territory for operations against Iran. He also said he’s unhappy with the U.K. after their prime minister allowed the U.S. to use two of its bases, but only for defensive actions against Iranian missiles.’Sadly familiar’
Dee Lysak in Sioux Narrows, Ont., also reached out with a series of posts on Threads following Trump’s comments.
“Spain — you are welcome here. We see you. We hear you. We applaud your government,” she wrote.
Since then, she’s heard from people in Spain who offered recommendations of places to stay and told her she would be welcome there, too.
Lysak told CBC News that, as a Canadian, Trump’s comments “felt unfair, and unreasonable, and then sadly familiar.”
“We’re building these connections now, I guess, from this post,” she said. “I get a sense of that whole notion of friends and allies and what it really means.”
In a comment with more than 68,000 likes on a CBC News TikTok of the Trump clip, user sassycecile3 wrote, “Hey Canada, let’s buy products from Spain!”
Meanwhile on Reddit, user EhBuddyHoser launched a thread titled, “Spain joining Canada in the club of threatened NATO allies,” eliciting a number of humorous comments.
Spain calls war ‘unjustifiable’
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has been consistently critical of the U.S. and Israeli campaign in Iran, calling it an “unjustifiable” and “dangerous” military intervention.
He stood firm against Trump’s trade threats in a televised address on Wednesday.
“We are not going to be complicit in something that is bad for the world and is also contrary to our values ​​and interests, just out of fear of reprisals from someone,” Sánchez said.
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has been critical of the war in Iran. (Michael Probst/The Associated Press)
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has been more measured in his criticism of the war.
After initially issuing a statement of support, he said on Tuesday that his backing of the attacks on Iran comes amid a “failure of the international order” and is “not a blank cheque.”
Carney called for a “rapid de-escalation of hostilities.”Â