Sánchez opens the UN summit in Seville today, amending Trump's position.

"Multilateralism, cooperation, and peace" are, according to Pedro Sánchez, the principles that underpin the UN conference on financing for development, which he will open today in Seville, as host, alongside UN Secretary-General António Guterres. The summit will run until next Thursday and is expected to be attended by around 50 heads of state and government, but without any representatives from the Donald Trump administration.

Following the clash at the NATO summit in The Hague over spending 5% of GDP on defense and Trump's threat of trade retaliation against Spain, the Seville conference represents, in fact, an amendment to the ideological and geopolitical agenda of the White House tenant, who, among other twists in his international policy, drastically cut cooperation and development aid programs and maintains his standoff with multilateral institutions such as the UN and the World Trade Organization.

Sánchez rejects spending 5% on defense, as Trump demands, but defends the 0.7% target for development aid. He reiterated this yesterday at the Global Citizen Now pre-event in Seville, which he attended alongside the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the CEO of the Gates Foundation, Mark Suzman.

"There have been drastic cuts in aid, especially this year," Sánchez lamented yesterday, without specifically citing Trump, as is his custom. And two out of every five people on the planet live in countries that "spend more on financing their debt than on public services," he lamented. But he insisted that "there are reasons for hope," despite the negative global outlook.

The Seville conference is intended to be "a call to action." "We must act with courage," he demanded. He urged the mobilization of "more and better" resources for sustainable development, reducing the debt burden on developing countries, freeing up public financing, and creating a "more transparent and fair" tax system where large corporations pay more.

Last night, the King and Queen offered a dinner to the heads of state and government present at the international event.

"In these times of profound uncertainty and growing geopolitical tensions," Sánchez said, "we must strengthen our commitment to multilateralism, cooperation, and shared responsibility." It is precisely "in the darkest moments," he warned, that we must keep the flame of hope alive to build "a better world."

"We must raise our voices more loudly and tell the world that we are not giving up and we will not capitulate," he warned.

The Spanish ambassador to the UN, Héctor Gómez, has already emphasized that the Seville conference is taking place at a "critical moment for multilateralism," which requires "a call to action."

Regarding the US absence, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohamed stated that "it is regrettable that it is leaving the room on matters of such importance to billions of people." However, she noted that this absence will not prevent them from continuing to tell the world that "this is not the way." Mohamed also noted that the US—which has already warned that it will not sign the "Seville Commitment" that will emerge from the conference—will be forced to do so in one way or another in order "to be part of the success of lifting millions of people out of poverty and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals."

The government has been preparing for the event for months, highlighting its importance given the complex geopolitical context following Trump's return. In fact, the Moncloa Palace intends for this conference to be the "major milestone" of Sánchez's international policy during this term. Just as in the previous term, the Spanish presidency of the EU Council, in the second half of 2023, or the NATO summit in Madrid in June 2022, with Sánchez showing the Prado Museum to an admiring Joe Biden, and the international community united in its rejection of Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine. Those were, without a doubt, different times.

The president rejects spending 5% on defense, but defends 0.7% on development aid: "We are not giving up."

Ten years after the last edition of this UN conference on financing for development—which took place in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, in 2015—the event that kicks off today in Seville "is taking place in a turbulent and profoundly different context on the geopolitical, multilateral, and technological levels," the government explains. "Its very holding constitutes a call to action, capable of mobilizing more resources for sustainable development through financial instruments better adapted to the global challenges of multilateralism," they emphasize.

In the absence of the Trump administration, France's Emmanuel Macron, EU leaders Ursula von der Leyen and António Costa, and heads of state and government from South Africa, Kenya, Mauritania, Colombia, and Egypt are expected to attend. The King and Queen presided over the welcome dinner at the Royal Alcázar last night.