Donald Trump seems to confuse Spain with South Africa: ‘You’ll figure it out’
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Trump wrongly told a reporter: ‘They’re a Brics nation, Spain. Do you know what a Brics nation is? You’ll figure it out’. US President Donald Trump has left some in Spain confused after seeming to get the S in the acronym ‘Brics’ confused. On his first day, the president said Spain is a member of the Brics bloc of developing economies, causing some head-scratching and jitters over possible tariffs in Madrid.
![[Donald Trump and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy shake hands during a joint news conference at White House in 2017]](https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2017/09/26/21/us-spain.jpg)
Spain is not in Brics. It is an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Mr Trump erroneously said Spain was in Brics when a journalist asked him about Nato countries like Spain which do not meet the Nato minimum of spending 2% of economic output on defence. Spain ranked last in the 32-nation military alliance, estimated to spend 1.28% on defence last year.
Mr Trump started his answer by saying “Spain is very low,” referring to its defence expenditures, but quickly veered into speaking about Brics. “They’re a Brics nation, Spain. Do you know what a Brics nation is? You’ll figure it out,” he told the reporter from the presidential desk in the Oval Office.
It is a member of Nato, along with the US, and of the European Union. Mr Trump repeated his threat to put costly tariffs on Brics, saying “we are going to put at least a 100% tariff on the business they do with the United States,” part of his economic plans that would overturn decades of free trade consensus.
