Espionage Scandal

This past week, information has come out that the United States has been using resources to spy on over 60 million phone calls in Spain, according to USA TODAY. Jose Manuel Garcia Margallo, the Prime Minister of Foreign Relations in Spain, is outraged, saying that he has asked the US Embassy previously for information on this. He claims that it could severely change relations between the US and Spain. A document provided by former NSA employee Edward Snowden allegedly shows that the NSA collected this information from December 2012 until January 2013. This is an extremely important critical juncture in foreign affairs between the USA and Europe. If these reports are in fact true, the trust that has long existed between Spain and other European countries and the United States could be lost, making further international relations extremely difficult. As a nation, the United States needs to provide an explanation before relations with these other powerful countries cease being lucrative. Other countries that have been implicated in this NSA scandal include France and Germany, who are both demanding explanations from the White House. A nation needs to keep its allies, and if these reports are validated, the United States will be at a risk of losing the friendly relations it has enjoyed, and as history has shown time and time again, nothing good comes from hostile relations.