The US government ruled out cyberattacks as the cause of the blackout, while it was still being discussed in Spain.

Iberdrola chairman Ignacio Galán was not asked about the blackout by Donald Trump himself or his secretaries of Commerce, Howard Lutnick , and Energy, Chris Wright , according to knowledgeable sources, when he saw them separately on the 14th in Doha at a dinner hosted by the Emir of Qatar. The possibility that it was caused by a cyberattack on an allied country that provides bases to the US is what could have caused the most concern in Washington, but it had been cleared up long before through several channels.

The Spanish government itself ruled out the possibility last week in Washington that the April 28 blackout was caused by a cyberattack, although it officially maintained that hypothesis in Spain. Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Diego Martínez Belío traveled to the US capital on the 9th to strengthen rapprochement with the Trump administration, and one of the issues he discussed was the blackout, which has undoubtedly had international repercussions and has damaged the Spanish economy's reputation.

According to EL MUNDO, Martínez Belío ruled out a cyberattack during the meetings organized in Washington. This is according to sources familiar with the conversation with representatives of think tanks organized by the conservative Heritage Foundation. In this closed-door meeting, the diplomat maintained that this was unlikely to be the cause, having assumed that a cyberattacker could attack 35 connection nodes almost simultaneously.

However, the Prime Minister himself, Pedro Sánchez , still publicly maintained at that time that this hypothesis could not be ruled out. The PSOE leader had insisted as much in his appearance before the Congress of Deputies on May 7: "We are not going to rule out options until we have concrete and clear data." He took advantage of the same appearance to justify the increase in military spending due to the "thousand cyberattacks Spain is experiencing on critical infrastructure."

Politically, it's more attractive for the government to argue an attack than to talk about system failures, but the third vice president of the government, Sara Aagesen , finally admitted publicly on the 14th what the Secretary of State and Eduardo Prieto , director of the Electricity Grid Service, had defended the previous week in Washington. There was no cyberattack on the system operator. The nuance is that it has not yet been ruled out that one could have occurred at one of the electricity generating plants, but experts agree that this cannot cause a total blackout in the country or allow for recovery in hours.

The Foreign Envoy was also received at the Pentagon by Undersecretary of Defense Elbridge Colby and by the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Europe, Keith Self . The meeting with think tanks also included experts from the Atlantic Council, the Carnegie Endowment, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

A Ministry spokesperson declined to comment to this newspaper on the claims about the cyberattack on José Manuel Albares 's deputy during his meetings in Washington: "We do not comment on the content of the Secretary of State's meetings, beyond public and official communications." According to Martínez Belío himself on social media, his trip was "fruitful." He specifically said that the meeting at the Pentagon led to a "friendly, strategic, and realistic conversation about the challenges we share as allies."

Aagesen, for his part, admits that he still doesn't know the ultimate causes of the blackout and puts forward new hypotheses, such as that fluctuations across Europe had a particularly strong impact on Spain "like a whip." But mysteries within Red Eléctrica's control remain unsolved, such as the state of the existing interconnections with France on that fateful day. They are insufficient, but they were also not fully operational...

The Heritage Foundation, for its part, published a document ruling out a cyberattack and warned that "the US runs the risk of a Spanish-style electricity crisis" if it relies excessively on "intermittent" renewables. The impression that the energy transition cannot be undertaken by prematurely slamming the door on old energy sources transcends ideologies. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair , Labour Party leader, already argues that "any strategy based on the phasing out of fossil fuels in the short term or limiting consumption is doomed to failure."

This was also the atmosphere encountered by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in Washington, who also commented, according to sources consulted, on the important role that Felipe VI could play in the new relationship with Trump.

Meanwhile, the US president sees the businesspeople who are committed to his country. After accepting a question from Banco Santander president Ana Botín in Davos, he authorized the Emir of Qatar to include Galán among the select guests at the state dinner at the Lusail Palace. He had 70 billion reasons to be cordial, as seen in the image, with the president of Iberdrola. The Spanish group, owner of Avangrid in the US, has already invested 50 billion in recent years and plans to invest another 20 billion in the US market. For the Salamanca-born executive, it was quite a vindication to be the only Spaniard at such an elitist event after the attack he received from Sánchez on the 7th for defending nuclear energy. Incidentally, Trump is preparing executive orders to facilitate, in the opposite direction to Sánchez, a new nuclear wave that would bring stability to the system.

And what does Teresa Ribera , now at the European Commission, say about the blackout in La Vanguardia ? "It was a huge shock for everyone, and I'm sure we'll learn lessons once we understand exactly what happened." She's right about that.