Spain is handling the aftermath of the Spain Italy Ceuta Migration Row after more than 70,000 people crossed into Ceuta in a sudden influx and were swiftly returned. The crossings reached one of the EU’s two land borders with Africa, a route that turned a local border opening into a diplomatic dispute involving Spain, Morocco, and the United States.
JD Vance and the state department blamed the Socialist-led government of Spain for the influx, while Donald Trump warned that electing Democrats would make what happened in Spain “look small-time.” The political attack landed as Spain tried to absorb the scale of the movement and answer questions about what, if anything, Morocco did as people swam or waded across.
Riccardo Fabiani on Morocco
Riccardo Fabiani, the north Africa project director for the International Crisis Group, said, “I think there’s enough evidence to hypothesise or claim that Morocco is behind this,” and added, “It’s obviously impossible to demonstrate,”. Fabiani also said, “But in terms of plausibility, I don’t think it’s impossible to imagine that Morocco might have done something to earn brownie points with its allies, given that Morocco and this particular administration in Washington do have a very close, excellent relationship.”
Fabiani pushed the point further with a sequence of comments that left the accusation short of proof but well short of exoneration. “For sure the Moroccan security forces were monitoring those conversations,” he said. “They saw that and there was probably some conversation where they decided to do nothing and see where this goes.”
Washington and Rabat ties
The Ceuta crossings have landed in a wider scrutiny of Washington-Rabat ties, because Morocco and the Trump administration have long been open about their closeness. This year, Morocco announced that it would be the first African state to join Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, and recently Trump sent a congratulatory message to mark King Mohammed VI’s 27 years in power.
That backdrop matters because Morocco agreed to normalise ties with Israel in exchange for Trump’s recognition of its sovereignty claim over Western Sahara. This week, Morocco’s monarch also confirmed that he had named a $1bn highway flanking Western Sahara after Donald Trump, another signal of how much the relationship has been tied to Trump-era diplomacy.
Spain and Algeria
Spain’s recent rapprochement with Algeria has also been cited as a possible trigger for Morocco’s response, but the evidence described by Fabiani stays at the level of plausibility rather than proof. For readers in Spain, the immediate reality is that the border episode has already become part of a larger bargaining field between Rabat, Washington and Madrid, with Ceuta at its center and Morocco under renewed scrutiny over whether it acted or simply stood aside.
