Blog Roll: Spain

 

July 8 2026 Trump Lashes Out at Spain: ‘Cut Off All Trade.’ Here’s Why That’s Unlikely.

April 24, 2026 US considers suspending Spain from NATO, reported internal email suggests.

A shock to Spain will decrease Overall Growth (ES1), increase Unemployment (ES2) and increase Environmental Damage (ES3) (see the ESL20 model). 

Mar 3, 2026 Spain is in the news today because it denied US permission to use jointly operated bases to attack Iran. Spain is one of the few EU countries that has stood up to the US against the war with Iran. chatGPT notes that:

and that 

Here are some of my posts on Spain:

• Why is it Important to Study Spain? To understand the US South West and Latin America, you must understand Spain.
• Blog Roll: Mexico A major player in Latin America.
• Power Outage in Spain and Portugal provided shocks to each economy that can be analyzed.
• The Economy of Spain can be stabilized by Reducing Growth Rates Unlikely!
• The Mystery of Why Portugal's Economy is Performing so Poorly. The economy is moving toward a Steady State.

Notes

You can run the ESL20 model yourself using R-code here.

Why is it Important to Study Spain?

 

Right now, in the US, there is a lot of anti-Latin American sentiment being stoked by the neoFascist Trump II Administration. I live in the US Southwest have spent a lot of my life doing statistical analysis of Latin America (for example, here). My off-the-cuff explanation for the animosity toward the Southern Border is that Washington DC elites have little understanding or interest in what is happening in the US Southwest. The struggles of dark-skinned Latinos and Native Americans are just of no interest to the White power structure in the US.

Whatever the real reasons for nativist hostility, it would seem to me useful to study the history of the US Southwest starting with the Hapsburg Monarchy after the discovery of the New World by Spain. The map above (from Spain: the Center of the World 1519-1682) shows that the Hapsburg Empire initially controlled the US Southwest and the Spanish influence is evident everywhere in the present. Xenophobic politicians and their supports cannot simply get rid of Spanish culture by harassing Latin American immigrants. It is too deeply entrenched in the Southwest and too widely embraced by Americans living there.

In future posts, I will just reference this post rather than repeating my reasons for studying Spain in the US.