Four days after meeting with President Trump, who ‘hoped’ Spain would stay ‘united’ and that “secession would be foolish,” Spanish Prime Minister Rajoy is set to address the nation to explain why he sent his brutish military into Catalonia to stop people of his nation from exercising their free will to vote, injuring over 400 in the meantime.
Here was Trump and Rajoy last week…
President Trump said Tuesday that the United States opposes an independence drive in the Spanish region of Catalonia, telling reporters that such secession would be “foolish.”
“I think Spain is a great country, and it should remain united,” Trump said during a news conference with the visiting Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.
The president’s remarks mark a departure from the official position of the United States, which, as recently as Monday, was that a planned nonbinding Catalonia referendum Sunday to separate from Spain was an internal matter.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert had said earlier this month that the United States took no position on the referendum.
“We will let the government and the people there work it out, and we will work with whatever government or entity that comes out of it,” Nauert said.
But images of Sunday’s crackdown tested that backing…
“It’s a huge PR disaster for the Spanish government. It’s hard to justify the police beating up people,” said Angel Talavera, an analyst at Oxford Economics in London.
“We are going to see the secessionists start to try to win more international support. They will present the events as evidence for their thesis that they are up against a repressive regime.”
And tonight’s live feed from Rajoy to explain the debacle that is occurring in Barcelona and across the region (due to begin at 1415ET):
Remember, as we noted yesterday that
via http://ift.tt/2ws7MrF Tyler Durden