Spanish President Pedro Sanchez meets with dictator Xi despite US warnings

In the midst of escalating trade tensions between the US and China, Spain's head of government, the socialist Pedro Sanchez, traveled to Beijing to meet with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping to deepen the relations between the Asian giant and the European Union. A meeting that takes place despite the warnings of the Trump Administration to the Old Continent and while the main governments of the Eurozone are trying to reach agreements with the American Executive to avoid or limit the impact of the new tariffs.

Spain’s Socialist Party is seeking to position itself as a bridgehead for a new trade order between Europe and the Asian giant. Former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has spent years acting as an "intermediary" with Beijing’s Communist regime, and his connections are now being leveraged by Prime Minister Sánchez to build closer ties with China amid growing tariff tensions with the United States.

Former Spanish President Zapatero, a key player in the rapprochement with China

In fact, Zapatero is known for his calls to undermine the US. In 2020, during a videoconference with the Puebla group, the former president assured that "we have to make China and, hopefully, the EU -many of us are working in that direction- put the US in an impossible situation." With the current tariff tensions with the US, he may have found his momentum, much to Beijing's delight.

Xi calls on the EU to "resist together" Trump's "unilateral harassment"

In fact, Xi took advantage of Sanchez's visit to once again lash out at the US, accusing it of "bullying" and blackmailing world economies with tariffs. He also reached out again to the EU to "resist together" the "unilateral bullying" of the Trump administration. "China and the EU should shoulder their international responsibilities, protect economic globalization together, and resist all forms of unilateral intimidation together," the Chinese president said.

For his part, Sanchez assured that Spain and Europe must "work to remedy" their significant trade deficit with China, but must not let "trade tensions get in the way of the potential growth of the relationship," according to AFP.

A tour to expand trade relations and attract investment to Spain

Spanish government sources explained that the aim of this Asian tour, with a previous stop in Vietnam, is to expand trade relations and attract investment from these countries with which Spain has a trade deficit. As part of the visit, the Spanish president met in Beijing with large Chinese companies in the automotive, battery and green energy sectors.

The Asian giant is Spain's fourth-largest trading partner, importing Chinese products worth 45 billion euros ($49.1 billion). In contrast, Spanish exports to the world's second largest economy total 7.4 billion euros annually.

Spanish socialism, always close to China

On his last visit to Beijing in September 2024, Sanchez distanced himself from the EU and asked the bloc to reconsider the plan to impose high tariffs on Chinese electric cars. Brussels argued that such tariffs were necessary to protect European manufacturers from unfair competition from state-backed Chinese firms.

This new trip has raised criticism from the Spanish right wing and conservative press, who are wary of a rapprochement with China in the current context and criticize that Sánchez may be acting on his own without aligning himself with Brussels.