Spain hit back at Donald Trump on Friday after the US President suggested expelling the country from NATO for failing to meet his ramped-up defence spending target.

In June, the 32-nation military alliance agreed to massively boost defence spending to five percent of annual economic output over the next decade under pressure from Trump.

But Spain, which was NATO's lowest defence spender in relative terms last year, insisted it would not need to hit the headline figure.

"We had one laggard, it was Spain," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday.

"They have no excuse not to do this, but that's all right. Maybe you should throw them out of NATO, frankly."

Government sources said on Friday that "Spain is a committed and full member of NATO. And it meets its capacity targets as

See Full Page