Meeting with the Ambassador of Spain in the United States

Last month, the meeting with the Ambassador of Spain in the United States, Pedro Morenés, was held at CEI. In this meeting of International Classroom program, several issues were discussed from the perspective of current domestic policy of the United States and its impact on international relations between this country and the rest of the international community.

Ambassador Morenés explained the evident concordance between what happened in the 2016 presidential elections in the United States, with the unexpected triumph of President Trump, and those other situations -electoral or not- that were lived in other countries. The new sensitivity of societies opposed to “as usual” politics has produced reactions of different political colors, depending on each country, but with a common factor: its populist condition. That is, the proposal of easy solutions (apparently) and simple messages before the enormously complex and intertwined problems that make up the classic framework of political action in the present, both internally and internationally.

In this sense, the messages of “America First”, “buy American and hire American”, “make America great again”, undoubtedly hide irrevocable principles of politics in all countries, but their exclusionary application of others as important as these, legitimately, they do that the first ones do not reach the objectives that they pretend.

And that happens, fundamentally, with international mercantile relations. The uncertainty in the markets about the rules with which they must be governed makes access to them difficult not only for medium and small nations, but fundamentally for large ones -which are the main beneficiaries of their global dimension.

The change of multilateralism by bilaterality does not favor the generation of shared prosperity, so this generates political instability. Derived from this political instability is the generation of problems of insecurity: legal, economic, social and physical -even.

In this sense, Pedro Morenés explained succinctly the relations of Spain with the United States, NATO and the European Union. In all three areas, our country has high credibility, and that favors the position of Spain in other forums; besides being a responsibility to which any country that wants to have a relevant status in the world must attend.

The Ambassador insisted that the best contribution of Spain and its European partners to NATO, was to develop an effective and efficient European defense, coordinated, with which to contribute to NATO more than the capabilities of the partners separately.

Economic relations with the US are acceptable, having experienced spectacular growth in recent years:

• Spain is the ninth largest investor in the United States, with more than 62,000 million dollars, employing approximately 85,000 people, in more than 600 companies with Spanish capital established in this country.

• In the current political situation, the relationship with the authorities of the different States is more important than ever, therefore, the Ambassador put the various services of the embassy at the disposal of those who would like to establish their economic activity there.

• He also expressed the importance of knowledge of the administrative legal framework before beginning the American adventure. He pointed out that investment, the creation of economic activity, should be planned in the long term and with an important orientation towards technological competitiveness: that is how these markets open up and remain in them.

Finally, we reflected on the global leadership of the US, which was always based on the principles of freedom, democracy and the rule of law. Today in the world, this system of values ​​is discussed by other powerful actors whose systems are based on personal autocratic or single-party leadership.

Report by Beatriz Castejón

Student of the Master in Diplomacy and International Public Service