The economic relationship between Spain and the United States is much broader than just bilateral trade. These exchanges, which are the classic thermometer of international economic relations, are only the visible layer of the Spanish-American bond, which also encompasses investment, employment, and technological transfers, as evidenced by the report ‘2026 The Bridge Report’ from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Spain (AmChamSpain).
As highlighted in his cover letter for the report, the president of AmChamSpain, Jaime Melet, “conventional metrics stop at the trade of goods. They do not capture decades of accumulated investment, nor the sustained employment in both countries, nor the scale of ongoing projects, nor the depth of the Spanish presence in forty-five American states.”
The truth is that the economic relationship between Spain and the United States is one of the deepest and most mutually beneficial in all of Europe and, at the same time, one of the least known. Therefore, Malet believes it is time to compile in a report all the data that reflects an extraordinarily beneficial relationship for both countries.
“We are doing it now,” he explains, “because the moment demands it. The bilateral relationship is going through a phase of greater complexity: trade tensions, regulatory uncertainty, a European debate on strategic autonomy that does not always distinguish between partners and adversaries. In that environment, simplifications gain ground when structured data is lacking.”
The report, which AmChamSpain publishes with the intention of making it an annual reference, brings together for the first time the entirety of these dimensions in a single document, complementing the analysis of Spain: New Industrial, Digital, and Energy Power (AmChamSpain, 2024) with a complete overview of the bilateral relationship. The most tangible dimension of the relationship is employment.
Just to advance some figures that demonstrate the unknown level of the bilateral economic relationship, U.S. capital companies employ about 200,000 people in Spain while Spanish companies sustain 143,500 jobs in the U.S.; the accumulated direct U.S. investment in Spain amounts to 116.094 billion euros while Spanish companies maintain accumulated investments of 97.247 billion euros in what is their primary investment destination worldwide.
One last detail, and the most recent: The 4.45 million U.S. tourists who visited Spain in 2025 (+4.3%), with a record spending of 10.2 billion euros (+13%), consolidate the United States as the market with the highest unit value in the Spanish tourism industry, according to data from Turespaña.
All of this is part of a relationship that transcends the commercial. Spain is the gateway for the United States to Southern Europe and Latin America, and a key ally in the continent’s renewable energy transition and a relevant interlocutor within NATO. In summary, these dimensions —strategic, energy, security— amplify the value of the economic relationship and give it a depth that justifies the sustained analytical follow-up that this report offers.
