Abascal Visits Heritage Foundation in Washington

Abascal Seeks Legitimacy at Trump-Aligned Think Tank

Santiago Abascal has arrived in Washington to participate in several events alongside a delegation from PatriotsEU, hosted by the Heritage Foundation. The organization, led by Kevin Roberts, is one of the most influential groups within the incoming Trump administration. The VOX leader was not alone; he was accompanied by MEP Hermann Tertsch, who described the moment as "transcendental for all the West" and celebrated that "corrupt, scoundrels, and traitors" are falling into defeat and marginality in Spain, just as they have in the US.

The choice of host is not accidental. The Heritage Foundation drove the Reagan Doctrine in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, and Nicaragua, providing intellectual advice and financial support to anti-communist movements in the 1980s, including the armed Contras in Nicaragua and UNITA in Angola. Its founder, Joseph Coors, testified before the US Congress that he personally purchased a small cargo plane for the Contras with $65,000 while serving as an advisor to President Reagan.

Key Figures Behind the Heritage Foundation

The foundation's history includes names that have moved between the think tank and the US Central Intelligence Agency. Otto Reich, a Senior Research Fellow at Heritage while serving as Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs under George W. Bush, was involved in organizing counterinsurgency forces in Central America and managing the 2009 ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. Bruce Klingner, former Deputy Director of the CIA's Korea Division, served as a principal researcher for Northeast Asia at the foundation's Center for Asian Studies.

For some analysts, this background explains the visit. They argue that Abascal went to meet his "masters" at two well-known platforms of US intelligence: Heritage itself and the Hudson Institute, founded by Herman Kahn and linked to the RAND Corporation and the Rockefeller Foundation. Others do so in Moscow, they add. The thesis of subordination runs through much of the discussion: VOX as a local franchise of a foreign project.

Context: No Macron, Trudeau, or Starmer

The visit takes place on the eve of Trump's inauguration, scheduled for January 20, which will be held behind closed doors, officially due to extreme cold expected that day, similar to one of Reagan's inaugurations. Pedro Sánchez's absence from the guest list has been interpreted by some as a deliberate humiliation and by others as the logical consequence of diplomatic custom: ambassadors attend, while invitations to heads of state are extraordinary and discretionary for the incoming president.

Macron, Trudeau, Starmer, and Scholz are not invited. Nor is any leader who is not directly aligned, except Xi Jinping, who reportedly will not attend. In other words, the club of guests is small and selective, and Abascal secured a seat. The lingering question is what he gives in return.

The Unknown Price to Pay

Here the analysis diverges. One current argues that Abascal should repeat Franco's strategy: aligning with the Empire without being its lapdog, navigating between keeping the declining partner calm and maintaining independent growth policies, using Trump and his new media to wear down PSOE and control PP. Another, more skeptical current, recalls that party founders are often displaced by the second wave, noting that Abascal is a survivor of the first.

Optimism about a global cycle change also has a strong version: it holds that oligarchies saw the writing on the wall regarding China and the outcome of the war in Ukraine, and that the anti-proge shift is a defensive reaction, not a victory. The weak version simply points out that the world changes slowly and that confusing a single event in Washington with a global reconfiguration is an exaggeration.

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The detail that stands out: while the delegation posed with Roberts, the conversation drifted toward Zionism, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the intricacies of the military-industrial complex. No one has yet explained what concrete concessions Abascal brings back to Madrid. Given these elements, the most honest prediction is that his consecration will take place much sooner in Washington than in Spain.