MADRID

Spain’s King Felipe VI criticized the administration of US President Donald Trump on Thursday for its decision to eliminate Spanish from the White House’s official communications, website and social networks.

Speaking at an event in the capital Madrid organized by the Cervantes Institute, he described the move as “striking.”

Saying there are five centers of the Cervantes Institute across the US, he noted that Spanish far surpasses other languages ​​in secondary and university education in the country.

He also highlighted that the number of Spanish speakers in the US will reach 100 million by 2050.

The king said he hoped the decision is temporary because Spanish will become the second most spoken language and will continue to consolidate as a language of influence in the country.

Luis Garcia Montero, the director general of the institute, said Trump "insulted" nearly 60 million people in the US by presenting Spanish as the “language of the poor and immigrants.”

Last month, within hours of Trump's inauguration, his administration took down the Spanish version of the official White House website, while its Spanish account on X was also shut down.