Photograph: Chloe Cushman v @TheEconomist
Sep 9th 2025
TO APPRECIATE THE loneliness of Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, consider this. When he was left out of a White House summit on Ukraine on August 18th, it was only Spain’s second-worst snub that day. To the added dismay of foreign-policy types in Madrid, a seat was found for the president of Finland, a country with a population less than an eighth the size of Spain’s, alongside leaders from Britain, the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, NATO and Ukraine.