The United States has long maintained a close relationship with Morocco, providing the country with advanced weapons, intelligence cooperation, military training, and diplomatic backing. This strategic alliance has turned Rabat into a key pillar of Washington's North Africa strategy, while largely sidelining the security concerns of a NATO ally, Spain.
The U.S.-Morocco relationship reflects years of accumulating disagreements between Washington and Madrid over international priorities, defense burden-sharing, and strategic reliability. Morocco has repeatedly used mass migration as a tool of political pressure and hybrid warfare, while maintaining its territorial claims against Spain.
Successive U.S. administrations have played a key enabling role, expanding military cooperation and arms transfers to Morocco, which has emboldened the country's assertiveness toward Spanish sovereignty. The Trump administration and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have prioritized deepening the strategic alliance with Morocco, while openly criticizing Spain.
Recent U.S. statements have called for expanded cooperation with Rabat in defense, energy, artificial intelligence, and critical minerals, cementing Morocco as a key partner for regional stability and the Abraham Accords. In contrast, Washington's view of Pedro Sánchez's Spain has deteriorated significantly, with President Donald Trump publicly calling Spain a "terrible NATO ally" and a "wasted cause."
The U.S.-Morocco alliance follows a clear strategic logic for Washington: counterterrorism cooperation, access to the Atlantic and Mediterranean, stability in the Maghreb, and recognition of Moroccan claims over Western Sahara. Arms sales and military training enhance Rabat's capabilities against shared threats, but this policy also produces consequences for Spain.
Morocco has repeatedly shown its willingness to open or close migration flows as a pressure tactic, and the advanced military technology and surveillance systems supplied to Morocco improve its ability to exert calibrated pressure on Spanish territory without needing open military confrontation. President Trump's warnings at the NATO summit in Turkey were particularly blunt, pushing for commercial measures against Spain over its refusal to raise defense spending and its opposition to certain U.S. military operations.
Spain's situation is made worse by decisions taken by its own government. Under Pedro Sánchez, the executive has pursued policies that place ideology and progressive rhetoric above national cohesion, border security, and Spain's reliability as an ally. His government approved a mass regularization plan granting legal residency to around half a million irregular migrants, which has weakened deterrence and the rule of law.
Israel has also significantly expanded its military cooperation with Morocco, providing advanced technology, intelligence capabilities, surveillance systems, and military advice that have substantially strengthened the Moroccan Armed Forces. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is acting according to what he judges to be Israel's national interest, as any sovereign leader would.
Neither Washington nor Jerusalem will put Spain's interests ahead of their own. That is precisely why Madrid cannot continue acting as if others will protect Spanish sovereignty. A government that lectures its allies, obstructs joint military operations, underinvests in defense, and mass-regularizes illegal immigrants while Ceuta and Melilla face migratory pressure projects an image closer to strategic negligence than responsible leadership.
Spain needs to strengthen relations with partners that contribute to stability in the western Mediterranean, diversify its alliances, meet its NATO commitments, restore full defense cooperation with its main allies, and make unmistakably clear that protecting its borders and territorial integrity is a non-negotiable priority. That includes a firm deterrence policy against the use of migration as a weapon of pressure and the rejection of any approach that treats Ceuta and Melilla as bargaining chips.
