King Felipe VI of Spain receives the Letter of Credence of the new Ambassador of the United States, Benjamin Leon Jr., at the Royal Palace of Madrid, on Feb. 18, 2026.
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The new U.S. ambassador to Spain, Léon Medical Centers founder Benjamin Léon Jr of Miami., is facing unprecedented challenges as relations between Washington and Madrid have reached a fresh low over differences over the Iran war.
President Donald Trump branded Spain a “terrible” ally after Spain refused to let the U.S. use two military bases for attacks on Iran.
“I think they’re not cooperating at all. Spain. I think they’ve been very bad, very bad. We may cut off trade with Spain,” he told reporters on Wednesday, arguing that Madrid has been “very bad to NATO”.
Last week, Spain Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the country’s position was “no to war” in Iran, which he condemned as “illegal”.
Ambassador Léon, who built a healthcare empire that treats some 40,000 Medicare patients in South Florida, was a major donor to the Trump re-election campaign.
He was sworn in by Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Feb. 10 and presented his credentials to King Felipe VI of Spain days later, shortly before relations between the two nations deteriorated publicly.
Upon taking his post, Léon said that he would try to persuade the left-wing Spanish coalition government to raise its contribution to NATO from 2% to 5%, a measure the Trump administration has demanded of all European allies.
“Spain is a key NATO ally and host to thousands of our troops. Our collaboration on security matters is essential for maintaining stability in Europe and beyond,” Léon said during an acceptance speech in the U.S. Senate in October. “I will work to strengthen our defense partnership, including increasing Spanish defense spending and investments and continuing joint military exercises.”
This may prove hard, as Spain’s coalition government is made up of the Socialists and the far-left Sumar party which opposes any increase in NATO spending.
Sánchez has also found that his anti-war stance has proved popular with Spanish voters.
A poll in El País, a left-leaning Spanish daily, published on March 6 found that 68% opposes the U.S.-Israel war against Iran, while 23.2% supported it. Pollsters surveyed 500 people.
The prime minister faces a general election next year but has experienced a series of poor results for his Socialist party in two regional elections that are seen as a pointer for who might win when Spaniards go to the polls in 2027.
Unable to pass a budget because of the fractured nature of the Spanish parliament, Sánchez has sought to use foreign policy issues like recognizing the Palestinian state in 2024 and now opposing the U.S.-Israel attack on Iran to win support at home.
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Madrid declined to comment and said Léon would not be giving interviews at present.
Ignacio Molina, an expert in U.S.-Spanish foreign relations at the Real Elcano Institute think-tank in Madrid, said Léon had arrived in post just as relations had reached a “historic low”.
However, he said, Léon had the advantage of having Spanish family links, his Cuban origins and that he is not part of the MAGA movement in the U.S. Léon’s great-grandparents left the Canary Islands to live in Cuba.
“This may prove an advantage in dealing with the current Spanish government. Also, he may find allies among conservatives in Spain who support the U.S. stance on Iran,” Molina told the Miami Herald. “One of these is Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the Madrid regional leader, who is a popular figure among conservatives in Latin America and she supports private health.”
Born in Oriente in eastern Cuba in 1944, Léon moved to the U.S. in 1961. He worked with his father to set up medical centers for Cuban immigrants.
He was the founder of the Léon Medical Center clinics and supports Miami Dade College, where he established the Benjamin Léon School of Nursing.
In 2015, he donated $2.5 million to the Rubio presidential campaign. He also gave at least $1 million to Trump causes and is one of dozens of donors who bankrolled the president’s new White House ballroom.
His wife, Mavileibys Campa Felipe, 38, who is also of Cuban origin, has prompted admiring reports in the Spanish media, with ¡Hola! Magazine calling her the “First Lady of the new US Ambassador to Spain.”
Juan Tovar Ruiz, an expert in international relations who specializes in U.S.-Spain relations at the University of Burgos in Spain, said the present problems in relations may be dissipated by a change of government after next year’s elections.
“There is no doubt that Sánchez’s anti-U.S. stance is popular in Spain. But if the government changes after the general election next year we are likely to have a coalition of the conservative People’s Party and the hard-right Vox party,” he told the Herald.
“They will be more sympathetic to the Trump administration.”