US first lady Jill Biden in the capital of the United Arab Emirates on her last solo foreign trip

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Jill Biden used a tour of the United Arab Emirates' capital Thursday to praise efforts to fight cancer and call for more attention on women's health issues as part of her final solo foreign tour as first lady.

Biden, 73, arrived in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday night after visiting Italy and seeing her ancestral home of Gesso in Sicily.

On Thursday, she began a tour of the capital in the afternoon, stopping first to visit Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak Al Ketbi at the massive compound for Qasr Al Bahra. Sheikha Fatima, known as the “mother of the nation,” is a wife of the UAE's late first ruler Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and the mother of its current ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

The visit, while not focused on political issues, shows the importance the United States holds for the UAE, an autocratically ruled federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula. The Emirates hosts thousands of American troops. The country's Jebel Ali port in Dubai also is the U.S. Navy's busiest port of call outside of the U.S.

The UAE also is a major buyer of Boeing Co. aircraft for its long-haul airlines Emirates and Etihad, and has been focused on winning American support for its push into artificial intelligence.

Biden then stopped at the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, where she and her daughter, Ashley Biden, met with doctors at the hospital to learn about the clinic's efforts to battle cancer. She recounted the shock of losing Beau Biden, a son of President Joe Biden and his late first wife, to brain cancer.

“It was the same for us. We were just like everyone else," she recounted. “We walked in. We heard: ‘Brain cancer.’ We heard nothing else.”

Afterward, Biden visited Qasr Al Hosn, a historic fort in the center of Abu Dhabi's gleaming skyscrapers. She paused to look at kerosene lamps lining one wall and signed a guestbook.

“May the wisdom of these walls continue to light a way forward in peace and prosperity for centuries to come,” Biden wrote.

Biden has come to the country previously. In March 2016, she accompanied her husband, then the vice president in the last year of the Obama administration, on a trip to the Emirates.

But this trip comes after President Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden over federal crimes after previously pledging that he wouldn't. The president dodged questions about the pardon while he was on a trip to Angola.

For her part, Jill Biden on Monday said: “Of course, I support the pardon of my son.”

Biden found herself welcomed without any political questions, only acknowledging in passing at the Milken Institute’s Middle East and Africa Summit Thursday afternoon that she and her husband will soon “leave office together.”

“Women deserve answers about their health, because this is really an economic issue I think for women, and globally really, the research and the funding and the products," Biden told the summit, noting that medical research for too long had focused primarily on men.

Biden traveled Thursday night to nearby Qatar. After that, she'll fly to Paris and join President-elect Donald Trump and other dignitaries in Paris to celebrate the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral. She'll then return to Washington.

First lady Jill Biden visits Kasr Al Hosn Fort, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

U.S. first lady Jill Biden attends the Milken Institute's Middle East and Africa Summit in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

U.S. first lady Jill Biden attends the Milken Institute's Middle East and Africa Summit in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

U.S. first lady Jill Biden arrives to attend the Milken Institute's Middle East and Africa Summit in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

A message written by the First lady Jill Biden on the guest book as she visits Kasr Al Hosn Fort in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

A secret service agent stands by as the First lady Jill Biden signs the guest book during her visit to Kasr Al Hosn Fort in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

First lady Jill Biden speaks to the medical staff at Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

First lady Jill Biden, left, speaks to the medical staff at Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

Ashley Biden, daughter of US President Joe Biden, visits Cleveland Clinic with her mother Jill Biden in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

First lady Jill Biden visits Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

First lady Jill Biden, right, meets medical staff at Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

First lady Jill Biden meets medical staff at Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Dec. 05, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

First lady Jill Biden speaks during a visit to Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Dec. 05, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

First lady Jill Biden visits Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Dec. 05, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

First lady Jill Biden visits Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Dec. 05, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

First lady Jill Biden, right, and her daughter Ashley Biden attend their visit to Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Dec. 05, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

First lady Jill Biden, foreground, visits Kasr Al Hosn Fort, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

First lady Jill Biden, right, visits Kasr Al Hosn Fort, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

First lady Jill Biden, right, visits Kasr Al Hosn Fort, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

First lady Jill Biden, right, and her daughter Ashley Biden, behind, walk during a visit to the Kasr Al Hosn Fort in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

First lady Jill Biden visits Kasr Al Hosn Fort, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

MADRID (AP) — While Europe’s military heavyweights have already said that meeting President Donald Trump’s potential challenge to spend up to 5% of their economic output on security won't be easy, it would be an especially tall order for Spain.

The eurozone’s fourth-largest economy, Spain ranked last in the 32-nation military alliance last year for the share of its GDP that it contributed to the military, estimated to be 1.28%. That’s after NATO members pledged to spend at least 2% of GDP on defense — a target that 23 countries were expected to meet last year that was largely motivated by concerns about the war in Ukraine.

When pressed, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and others in his government have emphasized Spain’s commitment to European security and to NATO. Since 2018, Spain has increased its defense spending by about 50% from 8.5 billion euros ($8.9 billion) to 12.8 billion euros in 2023. Following years of underinvestment, the Sánchez government says the spending increase is proof of the commitment Spain made to hit NATO’s 2% target by 2029.

But for Spain to spend even more — and faster — would be tough, defense analysts and former officials say, largely because of the unpopular politics of militarism in the Southern European nation. The country’s history of dictatorship and its distance from Europe’s eastern flank also play a role.

“The truth is defense spending is not popular in European countries, whether it’s Spain or another European country,” said Nicolás Pascual de la Parte, a former Spanish ambassador to NATO who is currently a member of European Parliament from Spain’s conservative Popular Party. “We grew accustomed after the Second World War to delegate our ultimate defense to the United States of America through its military umbrella, and specifically its nuclear umbrella."

“It's true that we need to spend more,” Pascual de la Parte said of Spain.

Spain joined NATO in 1982, a year after the young, isolated democracy survived a coup attempt by its armed forces and seven years after the end of the 40-year military dictatorship led by Gen. Francisco Franco. Under a 1986 referendum, a narrow majority of Spaniards voted to stay in the alliance, but it wasn’t until 1999 that the country that is now Europe’s fourth-largest by population joined NATO’s military structure.

In that sense, “we are a very young member of NATO,” said Carlota Encina, a defense and security analyst at the Elcano Royal Institute think tank in Madrid.

Opinion polls generally show military engagement as unpopular among Spanish voters. An overwhelming majority of Spaniards were opposed to their country’s involvement in the 2003 Iraq war, polls showed at the time, but support for NATO in recent years has grown.

About 70% of Spaniards were in favor of NATO sending military equipment, weapons and ammunition to Ukraine soon after Russia began its full-scale invasion of the country, according to a March 2022 poll conducted by the state-owned Centre for Sociological Studies, or CIS. But only about half were in favor of Spain increasing its own defense budget, according to another survey CIS conducted that month.

Across the spectrum, political analysts and former Spanish politicians say militarism just isn’t great politics. Madrid is nearly 3,000 kilometers (roughly 1,800 miles) west of Kiev, unlike the capitals of Poland, Estonia or Latvia, which are closer and have exceeded the alliance's 2% target based on last year’s estimates.

Ignasi Guardans, a Spanish former member of the European Union’s parliament, said many Spaniards value their army for humanitarian efforts and aid work, like the help thousands of soldiers provided after the destructive Valencia flash floods last year.

“Now the army has returned to have some respect,” Guardans said, “but that’s not NATO.”

Encina said Spanish politicians generally feel much more pressure to spend publicly on other issues. “This is something that politicians here always feel and fear,” she said. The thinking goes, “why do we need to invest in defense and not in social issues?”

Spain’s leaders point out that while they have yet to meet NATO’s budget floor, it’s unfair to only consider the country’s NATO contributions as a percentage of GDP to measure of its commitments to Europe and its own security.

Officials often point to the country’s various EU and U.N. missions and deployments, arguing that through them, the country contributes in good form.

“Spain, as a member of NATO, is a serious, trustworthy, responsible and committed ally,” Defense Minister Margarita Robles told reporters this week following comments made by Trump to a journalist who asked the U.S. president about NATO’s low spenders. “And at this moment, we have more than 3,800 men and women in peace missions, many of them with NATO,” Robles said.

Spain’s armed forces are deployed in 16 overseas missions, according to the defense ministry, with ground forces taking part in NATO missions in Latvia, Slovakia and Romania and close to 700 soldiers in Lebanon as part of the country’s largest U.N. mission.

Spain also shares the Morón and Rota naval bases in the south of the country with the U.S. Navy, which stations six AEGIS destroyers at the Rota base in Cádiz.

Analysts also point to the fact that Spain’s government routinely spends more on defense than what is budgeted, through extraordinary contributions that can exceed the official budget during some years by 20% to 30%.

“The reality is, the whole thing is not very transparent,” Ignasi said.

Pascual de la Parte, who was Spain’s NATO ambassador from 2017 to 2018, said the 2% metric shouldn’t be the only measure since not every NATO member accounts for their defense budgets in the same way.

“There is no agreement between allies in choosing which criteria decide the real spending effort,” he said, adding that, for example, while some countries include things like soldiers’ pensions in their accounting, others don’t. “Ultimately, they can involve very disparate realities.”

FILE - A general view of the Meeting of the North Atlantic Council Session with fellow heads of state at the NATO summit at the IFEMA arena in Madrid, on June 30, 2022. (Jonathan Ernst/Pool Photo via AP, File)

FILE - Bulgarian and Spanish Air Forces'personnel pose in front of Eurofighter EF-2000 Typhoon II aircraft and MiG-29, in Graf Ignatievo, Feb. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Valentina Petrova, file)

FILE - Armed Spanish military police are seen on duty at the square in front of the Spanish Cortes (Parliament) seen in the background, in Madrid, Feb. 24, 1981 while inside the lower house about 150 armed Civil Guards still hold the deputies hostage. (AP Photo)