Spain and the United States - Real Instituto Elcano

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SPAIN AND THE UNITED STATES
first acquisition in June 2005, when it bought Taco Bueno, a Mexican fast-food
chain with 136 restaurants in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. The fund
concentrates on medium-sized companies, the area with the most possibilities
for Spanish companies in the United States, given the enormous size of the
market and hence the high and probably prohibitive cost of acquiring very big
companies (the strategy pursued in Latin America).
Despite the slow but steady growth in the Spanish-US bilateral economic
relationship, much potential remains untapped. According to the Elcano Index
of Strategic Risks and Opportunities for the Spanish Economy, the United
States is classified as a "strategic opportunity" for Spain (see
www.realinstitutoelcano.org/publicaciones/libros/indice_oportunidades/inf4p1
.pdf). Even given the US's frequent status as the number one national investor
in Spain, the relatively underdeveloped commercial relationship and the still
modest flows and stocks of Spanish FDI in the US yields a situation in which
Spain's interaction with the US is still much less significant than it might be.
Between 1995 and 2004 (the years covered by the Elcano Index), the United
States oscillated between a position as an essential economic partner (like the
UK, France or Germany) and a position as an underdeveloped "strategic
opportunity." Given the very large size of the US economy, however, and the
natural economic gravity we would expect it to exert on Spanish economic
agents, it seems reasonable to conclude that the United States offers very
interesting strategic potential for the Spanish economy to take advantage of.
As well as scope for greater trade and investment, Spain and the United
States also have room for closer cooperation in various other areas, particularly
in the scientific and technological fields and in defence industrial cooperation,
an area of great imbalance in Spain’s relations with the United States. It is
surprising that Spain still does not have a science and technology attaché at its
embassy in Washington. Miguel Ángel Moratinos, Spain’s foreign minister,
has put forward five proposals: (1) to hold ministerial meetings at least once a
year and on a lower level twice a year to strengthen bilateral cooperation in
Latin America, the Middle East and the Mediterranean and to forge closer
cooperation in security and terrorism issues; (2) to promote mutual campaigns
to “get rid of prejudices and misunderstandings”; (3) to establish a scholarship
programme along the lines of Europe’s Erasmus; (4) to create a joint institution
for research and development; and (5) to set up a joint organisation among US
and Spanish companies to promote the exchange of information. Whether
anything comes of these proposals remains to be seen.