Letter from Spain #77

US President Donald Trump said in an interview with the Telegraph today - April Fool’s Day - that he is strongly considering pulling the US out of NATO.

It won’t happen.

It won’t happen in the same way that most things that Trump threatens or promises don’t actually happen. On tariffs, government shutdowns and threats against Greenland, Canada, Panama, the EU - and even Spain (which we’ll get to in a minute) - Trump has a history of backing down in the face of strong opposition or an economic slump.

There’s an acronym for it: TACO - ‘Trump Always Chickens Out’.

It gained prominence last year after Trump launched his ‘Liberation Day reciprocal tariffs’ on imports to the US from everywhere on earth, including from volcanic islands near the Antarctica inhabited exclusively by penguins.

What happened? The markets went haywire, so Trump delayed everything as a way to increase time for negotiations and for stock markets to rebound. Finally, most of these tariffs were significantly lowered, and the US Supreme Court eventually struck down the bulk of the plan in early 2026. I hope the penguins are happy.

They use Trump’s TACO label on Wall Street, where ‘TACO trade’ involves buying stocks cheaply after a presidential tariff announcement pushes stocks lower … then selling them at a profit after the tariffs are delayed or reduced and the market rebounds.

The Times has run an even more sinister article today - ‘Are Trump insiders making a killing on the Iran war?’ - also related to an earlier report in the same paper, where at least half a billion dollars in bets on the oil market were placed minutes before Trump announced that the US would postpone military strikes on Iranian energy targets.

A further investigation by the Financial Times indicated that the Morgan Stanley broker of Trump’s ‘war secretary’ - the Bible-thumping Pete Hegseth - contacted the asset management group BlackRock about investing in its defence fund shortly before the US and Israel attacked Iran.

Trump himself is a businessman, remember. He’s not a statesman. He likes doing deals, not politics. Or at least he likes doing deals when he knows what he’s actually doing …

‘Nobody knows what I’m going to do,’ he has said on several occasions during his bizarre press briefings in the Oval Office or on Air Force One. The same press briefings in which he’s also said ‘Quiet, Piggy’ to a female reporter, or called another one ‘obnoxious’ and a ‘terrible reporter’.

‘Nobody knows what I’m going to do. I may do it. I may not do it. Nobody knows.’

It’s worse.

Trump himself has no idea what he’s going to do.

Ever since the start of the Iran war, Trump has been sending out confused, conflicting messages: the war is won; the war would be ending ‘soon, very soon’; the war is ‘very complete, pretty much’; the war is not a war but an ‘excursion’; Iran has 48 hours to stop fighting and make a deal; Iran has 10 more days; shipping companies need to ‘show some guts’; Iran should ‘open up the Strait of Trump, I mean Hormuz’ and ‘we don’t need it anyway’ … ‘the US is in serious discussions with A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our military operations in Iran’. And now today, Trump claims ‘Iran has asked for a ceasefire.’ Iran has denied it, calling it ‘false and baseless’.

Meanwhile Trump has also attacked the UK, ridiculing Britain’s defence forces, particularly the navy, dismissing their aircraft carriers as ‘toys’ - and ‘you don’t even have a navy - you’re too old and had aircraft carriers that didn’t work’.

Traditional allies of the US - NATO allies - have been berated by Trump for not joining ‘Operation Epic Fury’ against Iran - then told by him that he doesn’t need them - and then also been taunted as ‘cowards’.

This is the same president - sorry, businessman - who had to backtrack on remarks he made during an interview with Fox News, in which he said of NATO troops: ‘We’ve never needed them. We have never really asked anything of them. They’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan ... and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines.’

His words drew condemnation from international allies, while Keir Starmer called them ‘insulting and frankly appalling’. Trump then used his Truth Social platform to praise UK troops as being ‘among the greatest of all warriors’.

I repeat: Trump won’t pull the US out of NATO. It’s just hot air trumping from an orange balloon.

Not only do I believe that the US gain much more by having a seat at the EU’s security table than not, but Trump cannot legally exit NATO unilaterally.

I’ve done my research. Under a 2023 law passed under Joe Biden, a withdrawal would require backing from two-thirds of the Senate or an Act of Congress. What might happen - and what US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said - is that Washington may need to ‘reconsider its relationship’ with NATO once the war against Iran is over (if it ever is).

Yes - and NATO might want to also reconsider part of its own relationship with the US while Trump is that country’s commander in chief.

Which brings me to Spain …

Trump has threatened Spain, too, of course. I’ve covered this in previous posts. From criticising Pedro Sánchez and Spain’s contribution to the NATO defence budget, to Spain not allowing US military aircraft to use the air bases in Andalusia (or even Spanish airspace) for any ‘illegal’ Iran operations … Trump has called the country a ‘loser’ and threatened to ‘cut off all trade with Spain … we don’t want anything to do with Spain’. Has it happened? No, of course not … it’s hot air.

One thing is certain: Sánchez isn’t fooled by Trump, and he’s been consistent in his criticism of his foreign policy (at least) since day one.

Regular readers of this blog will already know my opinion of the Spanish prime minister and I’m not going to repeat anything here - at least not in writing. You can listen in instead! This morning I chatted with Giles Brown on Talk Radio Europe about the latest news from Spain, in which Sánchez and Trump form most of the discussion. Here’s the link, if you’re interested:

Below, I have some book news and events coming up. April is going to be a busy month for me, but I’ll be back posting on here by Monday 27 April at the latest. In the meantime, I hope you have a great Easter. Thanks for reading (and listening) …

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A bit about me: on and off, I have worked in the media in Spain for some 30 years (click here for more info). Currently, in addition to writing my books set in Spain and developing them for the screen (see below), I also chat briefly on most Wednesday mornings to Giles Brown on Talk Radio Europe.

Tuesday 24 March was a very special day. One of my books, The Barcelona Connection (see below), is on the syllabus at DePaul University in Chicago, as part of the study of the genre of mystery and detective fiction for first year students who specialise in criminology and sociology. That in itself is brilliant - but even more so because their course includes a Study Abroad trip to Barcelona (this year and next) to follow the trail of the book on a tour called ‘The City is a Mystery’. Their trip also takes in the Dali Museum in Figueres.

I am honoured to be in great company, too - as the only other book on this course is the superb ‘Shadow of the Wind’ by the late Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Their course notes state: ‘an epic gothic mystery and a modern thriller that follows the criminal underworld of stolen and forged art’ - ‘texts rich with history, sociological themes of racial and socioeconomic injustice, and reflections of criminological theories ...’

Last Tuesday, 18 of the students and two professors visited me in my hometown of Sitges and took me to lunch after a tour of the museum here. We had a long, great discussion about the book, the process of writing, the genre of crime and fiction in general ... and then they all wanted their copies signed.

On Friday 17 April at 8pm I am going to be presenting The Madrid Connection in the wonderful Secret Kingdoms Bookshop in Madrid, alongside Ann Bateson. It’s a free event (with refreshments), but as places are limited the bookshop requests you buy a €3 voucher redeemable at the event. Please come along if you are in Madrid at that time - it would be great to see you there! Here’s a link to reserve a place, or click on the image below.

This year’s Sant Jordi in Catalonia (Thursday 23 April), I am going to be signing books during the day in Sitges, at the Ajuntament de Sitges stand and also the Welsh-Catalan Association’s stand. If you are in Sitges, please come along and say hello!

Published on 26 Nov 2025, The Madrid Connection is a standalone crime-thriller, but also a sequel to The Barcelona Connection (see below).

Here’s the back cover blurb from The Madrid Connection:

Of all the paintings in all the galleries in all of Madrid.

They chose a Caravaggio.

And they chose last night.

On the night Madrid hosts the Champions League Final, disaster erupts at the Prado Museum: a guard is murdered and a Caravaggio is stolen.

British art detective Benjamin Blake, hoping for a quiet few days in the city on a low-key assignment, instead finds himself dragged into the chaos he swore to avoid.

Suddenly he’s the investigation’s uninvited headache – and possibly its key.

Rival mafias begin circling. The Asians want him gone. The Italians want him alive – at least for now.

As the cultural bureaucrats drag him into the case to deflect from their own failings, Madrid’s homicide chief – choking on his own lies – wants him nowhere near the case, let alone the truth.

Across the city, journalist Elena Carmona is in Madrid on a separate assignment, digging into the poison of racism in football – an evil that opens into a far wider conspiracy.

Trafficking, exploitation and revenge run beneath the pitch and deep into the criminal underworld, drawing her straight towards the same mafias now circling the stolen Caravaggio.

As her investigation crashes straight into Benjamin’s, they find themselves at the centre of something far darker than either imagined.

Art, money, football, murder, mafia – Madrid was never going to keep them apart.

The Madrid Connection is a fast, gripping and darkly funny page-turner - the perfect sequel to The Barcelona Connection.

The Madrid Connection - Research & Images

After The Barcelona Connection was published in April 2023, I started to post images and notes in this Substack blog about my research for the novel, especially about Salvador Dalí and many of the locations that appear in the book - from Nîmes to Barcelona, with Figueres, Cadaqués, Púbol, La Bisbal and even Girona airport in between. Links to all those posts can be found below.

I am now doing the same with The Madrid Connection - just for those who might be interested!

Past posts on research and images for the book:

• Letter from Spain #71 - Prologue, and the ‘Prado by Night’.

• Letter from Spain #70 - time spent in the Prado Museum ‘casing the joint’.

I’ll soon put some notes and images that relate to Chapter 1 that takes place in the Casa del Campo and then also in the streets surrounding the Italian Embassy in Madrid.

‘The Barcelona Connection’ is in development for the screen, and I hope I will be able to post further news about this here in due course.

Research: In my weekly ‘Letter from Spain’ from #7 right up to #42, I included notes about all the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection. Many of the posts include photos and descriptions of locations that appear in the book, from Nîmes, Figueres, Cadaqués, La Bisbal d’Empordà and, of course, many areas of Barcelona. There are also posts about Salvador Dalí’s Hallucinogenic Toreador and ‘The Face’, the Dalí Museum in Figueres, the Picasso Museum and MNAC in Barcelona, even Girona Airport and nearby motorway service station - as well as the G20 Spouse Party, museum visits and ‘art attacks’. I hope the notes about the research are of interest … and I hope you might buy, read and take The Barcelona Connection with you to some of the locations that appear in the book! If you do, please send me a photo and I’ll post it here …

A murder. A kidnapping. A lost Salvador Dalí painting. Just 36 hours to resolve all three. Every crime scene is a work of art …

Benjamin Blake is no ordinary detective. Specialising in the criminal underworld of stolen and forged art, things don’t always go the right way for Benjamin. But when they don’t, he has a stubborn determination to put them right.

Within hours of being sent to Barcelona to authenticate a possible Salvador Dalí painting, Benjamin is left stranded without his cell phone at a service station alongside a bloody corpse in the early hours of the morning, after being savagely attacked with his hire car stolen, together with the painting.

Helped and hindered by the fiery Elena Carmona, pursued by a psychopathic hitman, Benjamin becomes the prime suspect in a politically motivated kidnap and murder. All this on the eve of Barcelona hosting a G20 summit and UN climate change conference, with the police in hot pursuit fearing a wider terrorist threat.

From Nîmes in the South of France, across the border to the sweltering humidity of Girona, Barcelona, Figueres and Cadaqués, The Barcelona Connection is a fast-paced, gripping page-turner sprinkled with black comedy, blending the real with the surreal, art crime and mistaken identity … and where the clues at the crime scene might just be the mirror image of a long-lost work of art …

If you can’t locate a copy of The Barcelona Connection in your local store, it can be ordered from any bookshop simply by giving the ISBNnumber: 978-1-7393326-1-7.

It is also available in print or as an eBook via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or you can also click here to choose where else to order your copy from.

Click here for the latest reviews on Amazon and on Goodreads.

A review by Michael Eaude of The Barcelona Connection was published in the October 2023 edition of Catalonia Today.

‘Short, fast-moving scenes and the deft joining of two completely different plots … the novel is not just breathlessly rapid and action-packed, but overflows with humour and satire.’

‘The excellent plotting, the local knowledge, the surreal humour, the political satire and the speed of events … it’s an admirable and very readable crime novel.’

A review by Dominic Begg of The Barcelona Connection was published in La Revista, a publication of the British-Spanish Society.

‘The Barcelona Connection is a fast-moving page-turner with a helter-skelter plot.’

‘The background to this thriller is realistic and familiar to those who know Barcelona well. It’s a world of cynical, ambitious politicians; civil servants promoted via enchufe; friction between Spanish and Catalan investigators; disruptive anti-capitalist activists; bumbling US dignitaries and security guards; the continuing influence of old supporters of Franco; the soulless 21st century, exemplified by apartment hotels seemingly without human staff-members …’

Here’s a link to a review of the book by Eve Schnitzer published by the Spain in English online newspaper.

‘Tim Parfitt very cleverly weaves together two parallel though quite different stories, set against the background of a contemporary Barcelona that is even busier than usual with major international meetings.’

‘Two plot lines interweave, with some highly ironic as well as suspenseful results … this book has a lot to offer the reader, from pure entertainment to solid information and, possibly, a fuller understanding of the complexities of Spain and Catalonia in particular.’

Here’s the link to an article I was asked to write for The Art Newspaper about my research on Salvador Dalí.

Eighteen years since it was originally published, ‘A Load of Bull - An Englishman’s Adventures in Madrid’ has been re-issued with a new introduction, new cover and five extra chapters that were cut from the original book.

It is available in print and as an eBook worldwide, in both formats. You can also order the new paperback or digital edition via Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or the digital version on Apple, Kobo, Smashwords, or on many other platforms by clicking here.

If you’ve never read the book, I hope you will now acquire a copy and laugh out loud. If you did read and enjoy the original edition, I think you’ll love this new edition with additional chapters! More details about the book and links to many reviews are below.

As with previous posts showing images and locations that form part of the research I carried out for The Barcelona Connection novel (above), I am also planning to publish an archive of photos here of Madrid that relate to many chapters in ‘A Load of Bull’ - although it will take time! In Letter from Spain #52, I cover Chapter 1 - the Centro Colón aparthotel (entrance) Watch this space for further images …

The hilarious true story of an Englishman sent to Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue …

In the late eighties Tim Parfitt blagged his way into a job at Condé Nast in London and from there into a six week stint in Madrid to help launch Spanish Vogue. Six weeks turned into nine years, and helping out turned into running the company. Along the way, Tim Parfitt discovered the real ‘real’ Spain. He never saw a Costa and he certainly never bought an olive grove. Instead, he discovered a booming city in hedonistic reaction to years of fascism, where sleep was something you only did at work and where five hour lunches invariably involved a course of bull’s testicles.

Tim Parfitt’s rise from unwanted guest to paparazzi-pursued mover in Spain’s glamorous social scene is a hilarious comedy of errors. Frothing with a language designed to make foreigners dribble, hospitalised by tapa-induced flatulence and constantly frustrated by the unapproachable beauty of the women parading through the Vogue offices, he nevertheless falls in love with a city, a country and its people - despite the fact he hasn’t a clue what they’re on about.

You can click here for all the reviews of A Load of Bull on Amazon, as well as on Goodreads.

Links to newspaper and magazine reviews:

‘A hugely entertaining memoir ... frequently laugh-out-loud funny.’ (The Daily Express)

‘Parfitt is no ordinary Englishman … his light touch and neat line in self-deprecating humour perfectly suits this entertaining urban spin on the old tale of Brits having fun under the Spanish sun.’ (The Sunday Times)

‘A love letter to Madrid ... brilliantly captures a truly eccentric and hedonistic place.’ (The Daily Mirror)

‘Often hilarious ... a side-splittingly funny travel memoir.’ (BBC Online)

‘Vivid yet affectionate … fascinating, escapist stuff.’ (OK! Magazine)

‘Magnificent ... brilliant and moving, hilarious and truthful.’ (La Vanguardia)

‘Don’t miss it … Madrid through the eyes of an Englishman.’ (Vogue España)

A Load of Bull was also published in Spanish under the title, Mucho Toro - las tribulaciones de un inglés en la movida. Click here or on image below for the current eBook version.

You can email me at: tim.parfitt@hotmail.co.uk