Progressive leaders rally in Barcelona to defend the traditional liberal order

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, center, poses with attendees, at the Meeting in Defence of Democracy summit in Barcelona, Spain, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Joan Monfort)

BARCELONA, Spain — Progressive and traditional democratic leaders gathered in Barcelona on Saturday to discuss how to restore faith in the liberal order threatened by a world drifting toward far-right extremism and torn by conflict.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, an outspoken critic of U.S. President Donald Trump and the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, is hosting two overlapping events about democracy and progressive politics at a convention centre in Spain’s second city.

The IV Meeting in Defense of Democracy brought together Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Colombian President Gustavo Petro, as well as the leaders or high-ranking officials of 10 other countries, including the United Kingdom.

While no leader mentioned Trump in the part of the meeting open to the press, the staunchly unilateral position of the American president that breaks with decades of U.S. foreign policy, including his derision of NATO and the United Nations, hung over the meetings intent on defending the multilateral rules-based order.

“We all see the attacks against the multilateral system, the repeated attempts to undermine international law and the dangerous normalization of the use of force,” Sánchez said.

Trump chose Saturday to lash out on social media again at Sánchez, who has faced Trump’s scorn for not allowing the U.S. to use jointly operated military bases in Spain for operations related to the Iran war and for refusing to raise military spending from 2 per cent to 5 per cent of GDP.

“Has anybody looked at how badly the country of Spain is doing. Their financial numbers, despite contributing almost nothing to NATO and their military defense, are absolutely horrendous. Sad to watch!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social.

Spain, like the U.S. and other developed countries, is in debt, but it has one of the world’s leading economies under Sánchez.

Less inequality, more trees

Ramaphosa promoted his plan to push for the United Nations to launch a comprehensive, international study and policy-action plan to battle the growing wealth gap both between and within nations on the model of its efforts to mitigate climate change.

He said South Africa will present a draft resolution to establish the International Panel on Inequality to the UN General Assembly in September.

Among concrete proposals, Sheinbaum plugged her idea that governments commit to spending the equivalent of 10 per cent of their military budgets on reforestation projects.

“Each year, instead of planting the seeds of war, we will plant the seeds of life,” she said.

Sheinbaum also said she wants to propose a declaration, without specifying if she referred to the UN, against a military intervention in Cuba, a move that Trump has said he believe he will “have the honor” of carrying out.

Sánchez argued for the importance of regulating social media to stop the spread of hate speech and disinformation.

Defending core values

Later on Saturday, several leaders will stay on to attend the inaugural Global Progressive Mobilization, where some 3,000 left-leaning elected officials and policy analysts will exchange ideas.

The gatherings come a day after Sánchez and Lula held a summit at a former royal palace in Barcelona. They shared their concern for a world that has been shaken by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Israel’s offensive in Gaza in response to Hamas’ attack, and now, the conflict in Iran that has disrupted oil and natural gas markets.

Lula and Sánchez are among the few progressive leaders who have withstood a shift to the right and remain popular in their countries while defending multilateral agreements, human rights, environmental protections and gender equality — values often challenged by Trump; Lula’s neighbor in Argentina, libertarian President Javier Milei; and Europe’s far right.

Joseph Wilson, The Associated Press