Mr. Clemente, it's a pleasure to be with you here. Well, thank you as always for being with us. We have to start with what is the news of the day, this Liberation Day in the United States that we are seeing right now in the effects on the stock markets today, these 20% tariffs for the European Union that have been imposed on everyone. All stock markets are trading negative today. On Wall Street, the Nasdaq was falling around 4% or 5% the last time I looked. What effects will this beginning of the tariff battle have on global trade? I would like to know.
I have often seen charts when I studied macroeconomics. Any measure has many edges, many repercussions, and you have to wait for the outward and return repercussions. Therefore, I think it is still premature to venture any kind of final consequence. The immediate consequence we are experiencing is more uncertainty in the markets and a higher probability of recession, particularly in the United States and in Europe. Well, it can mean a certain brake on growth that is already quite anemic in general, especially in the core countries of the European Union. Not in Spain, Spain is not bad, although it has very special characteristics, but in the core countries of the European Union, growth is really very low, and things like this can end up derailing it. Let's wait.
And what should the response of the European Union be?
Well, it's complicated. There are certain things where I think the American administration has no reason, for example in classifying VAT as a tariff. I think VAT is precisely not a tariff; it is a tax on all types of transactions, therefore it does not distinguish exclusively by nationality or product type. It is not a tariff. But there are things where they may have some reason, that is, you have to put yourself in the other's shoes, and they may have some reason. I think the American economy has not done badly in a globalized world. This rhetoric that they have been cheating Americans, and particularly Europe, I think is a bit exaggerated perhaps. It has to do with the fact that today in politics everything is exaggeration, everything is posturing before a voting mass that is not very discerning, as the Anglo-Saxons would say. But that said, I think the response of the European Union should be very measured. It has been suggested, for example, to target the tech companies. Be careful with the tech companies, because we are very far behind in the development of artificial intelligence and related applications. And if we close the door to continue bringing the best in that area, I think we would be wrong, particularly because it is an industry that curiously, from what I can see, favors us. That is, almost all of them today are moving capacity to Europe, not necessarily independently of the statements their main leaders have made, but they sympathize especially with this type of conception of the world. So now that they are coming to Europe and can help us take a leap in artificial intelligence, attacking there, I don't know if it would be very smart. Much moderation, much calm, probably negotiate.
In particular, in the case of Spain, the net position of Spain is very good. Spain has a trade deficit with the United States of around 10 billion euros. It is affected by its membership in the European Union, so it is affected by the same tariffs as the rest of the European Union. But I think we could find a fairly favorable predisposition from the American administration to accept exceptions that could be applied to Spanish products. Almost everything we export to the United States, unfortunately unlike what we export to other parts of the world, are exports of low technological added value: oil, wine, agriculture, oranges, whatever. I don't think the United States would have much problem excepting them, and by maintaining a relatively low profile, we could achieve quite a few fruits, because the United States has nothing against us particularly; it has it fundamentally against Germany. So it could be a good opportunity to keep a low profile and not mess things up, because I think it is not in our interest.
And in this whole context, how do you see the Spanish economy, an economy that is growing above the average of the European Union? It is true that also with a level of debt in nominal terms that is increasingly higher, but not in relation to GDP, which logically continues to grow.
Well, the debt in relation to GDP... clearly the debt that is measured is that of the public sector. The debt in relation to GDP is at levels that surprisingly today we consider acceptable, around 100% and a bit, but fundamentally due to the numerator effect. That is, Spanish debt has not changed; what happens is that due to inflation, GDP has risen. However, there is a peculiar characteristic of the Spanish economy that should be highlighted, and that is that the debt of companies and families is very, very low. And this is due not to any policy of anyone, but simply to the fact that after the great financial depression from 2008 to 2014, we learned with blood that debt kills. So Spanish families have deleveraged from around 90-something points of GDP to 40-something where we are now, and companies from 100-something points of GDP to 80 where we are now. Therefore, these are very healthy debt levels that keep private consumption afloat in Spain, together with the transfer policy of the public sector. And well, it is not a bad starting point if managed well. So I think we can maintain a bit of prudence, continue managing the Spanish economy well, which I think is a good starting point. And with moderation, the Spanish economy is being managed well at the moment; it is not being managed badly. My fellow countryman, I think he knows about economics, and well, if they let him, he can do it well. The thing is that sometimes it is not so much the quality or capacity of the Minister of Economy, but how much weight he has in the Council of Ministers. And it is true that unfortunately for many years the Minister of Economy has had little weight in the Council of Ministers. That is not good.
If we look at Merlin Properties, you are very focused now on data centers, everything related logically to the data center business, which is very linked to that technology we were talking about and the displacement of capacities that can come here. And where we also have an opportunity with artificial intelligence, with the improvements we are seeing, especially from Chinese technologies like DeepSeek. Is there a risk that we have to rethink that whole model, or are you not detecting any problem?
