Some countries receive a gift from History and Geography, and others are capable of discarding it without even undoing the ribbon. Spain belongs to the latter group. We found ourselves in Europe, with Africa a mere fourteen kilometers away, sharing with hundreds of millions of Americans a language, a culture, and five centuries on the curriculum, and in the end we let it all slip away by splitting it down the middle. In the last half-century, while France deepened its ties with its former colonies, the United Kingdom managed the Commonwealth and Portugal leveraged its lusophone links, Spain had a whole continent at the door and declared it ready. Even Franco, with his choruses and dances, his bullfighters, his Evita Perón and all the patriotic rhetoric of that era, did it better in that regard.
When democracy arrived and we were brought up to European standards in Brussels, we had a formidable bridge to Hispanic America: a common language, families, memory. We were natural mediators, capable of talking with Berlin and Buenos Aires, with Paris and Bogotá, as experts on both shores. Everyone found it convenient to turn to us, but once again we committed the error of the Austrians obsessed with Flanders and Europe instead of moving the capital to Lisbon — for sixty years Portugal was Spanish — and dedicating our efforts to the transatlantic world. And make no mistake: joining the European Community was a historic coup; but behaving like rustic newcomers, a colossal folly. We forgot that our advantage lay in having a continent on our résumé. And while we stared at Brussels with mouths agape, America waited for us to pick up the phone. But we never fully picked it up, and less and less, until they hung up.
For half a century we have had foreign ministers of various stripes, but American policy has been disheartening. Nothing lasts longer than three news broadcasts: an official trip, a speech, the protocol, and the plane back home. Then governments change, another one arrives that trembles at the mere mention of Cortés and Moctezuma, and it’s back to square one. Meanwhile, farther and farther away, America goes its own way without us: China arrived with loans, ports, infrastructure, contracts and perseverance; the United States keeps looking south; Europe builds its own bridges, bypassing the natural intermediary; and while some talk about lithium, copper, energy, technology and supply chains, our blundering diplomacy plods along with talk of brotherhood, roots and shared destinies. The Spanish presidency of the EU Council brought back in 2023 the EU-CELAC summit, which was a wonderful advance; but a selfie at a marathon does not turn you into Phidippus. To transform affinities into alliances you need a state with clear objectives, one that does not turn every president or politician there—depending on how they breathe—into a friend or foe for the dirty partisan wars here. It’s worth noting that Mexico is not Argentina, Argentina is not Colombia, and Colombia is not Peru, etc. And that the word Hispanic America is far more than a pretext for a band of thieves in politics to clink glasses with the current Delcy Basurita.
It is fair to say that there are heroes who fight. One is the Royal Spanish Academy, sister to the American academies, aware that Spanish does not belong to Spain but to those who speak it from the United States to Tierra del Fuego. Others are the Spanish entrepreneurs who risk their skin with nothing but their guts: they opened offices, learned that each country has its rules, its tax system, and its way of complicating life, survived devaluations, regulatory swings and diverse governments. I’m talking about banks, utilities, telecommunications, construction firms, insurers and hotel chains, but also about the person who opens a shop in Lima, a restaurant in Veracruz or a consultancy in Bogotá. If Spain figures among the major foreign investors, it is not thanks to a state-led strategy, but in spite of its absence. It’s irritating to note that a group of gentlemen and ladies who discuss adverbs, and others who excel at wrangling licenses, tariffs and permits, have more diplomatic weight than Minister Albares and his predecessors.
Let’s also speak about Felipe VI, because he is one of Spain’s greatest assets. No head of state in the world has Iberian-American doors opened to him like he does, for he has spent a lifetime traversing them: inaugurations, receptions, meetings, and the patience of someone who understands that international relations are cultivated, not inaugurated. Not everyone there sympathizes with the monarchy; there are republican sensibilities, real or imagined historical grievances, opportunism and sons of bitches. But he is always received with a level of respect that Pedro Sánchez and his henchmen would envy. The King of Spain possesses what no doorman will ever have: prestige, authority, education, knowledge of codes. He is a professional educated to be so. His role is not to direct foreign policy, but to represent the State. And he does so with a restrained, elegant steadiness that should shame our petty political class.
It isn’t about colonial nostalgia, nor about believing that sharing a dictionary and surnames is enough. Hispanic America needs reliable partners, capital flowing in both directions —Mexico is the sixth-largest foreign investor in Spain—, connected universities, investment, technology, and respect; and Spaniards could offer it without paternalism, without whining about a repentant power, without acting as Brussels bootlickers. But just as in North Africa, hoping for results from our waning foreign policy is like asking a chimpanzee to play the violin: not impossible in theory, but it’s better not to bet on Shostakovich. On the other hand —as heroically alone as Gary Cooper in that old film— the RAE will continue to maintain a common language, the entrepreneurs will keep fighting for business, and the King, out of sheer pride, will do what successive and incompetent governments fail to accomplish. If America is almost lost to Spain, it is thanks to them that it is not completely lost.
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