WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is preparing plans to penalize NATO allies for refusing US military access to their airspace and bases during the Iran war.

An internal Pentagon document describes potential steps such as suspending Spain from the Atlantic alliance and expressing support for Argentina’s claim over the UK-held Falkland Islands.

President Trump said earlier this month that he was considering withdrawing the US from NATO, established in 1949 at the onset of the Cold War to check Soviet influence and ambitions.

The punitive measures are an implicit acknowledgement that Trump is handcuffed by legislation — authored by now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio — that requires congressional approval to pull the US from NATO.

Suspending Spain — which joined the alliance in 1982 following the death seven years earlier of dictator Francisco Franco and the subsequent restoration of a parliamentary monarchy — would have limited military impact, the document first reported by Reuters asserts.

Spain prevented the US from using the jointly run Rota naval and Morón air bases for attacks on Iran last month, before closing its airspace to American warplanes.

The UK-owned Falkland Islands are reportedly described in the internal Pentagon document as “imperial possessions” whose status can be reconsidered as payback.

Argentina, led by Trump ally Javier Milei, claims sovereignty over the 3,500-population archipelago, first settled in 1765, with an economy dependent on fishing and sheep farming.

Buenos Aires invaded and seized the Falklands in 1982 — only to be decisively defeated by then-UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s military offensive two months later.

Trump has railed against current British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s lack of support for Operation Epic Fury — frequently making unflattering comparisons to Winston Churchill.

The UK “took far too much time” to allow US forces to use air bases and the Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean, Trump told reporters last month.

“As President Trump has said, despite everything that the United States has done for our NATO allies, they were not there for us,” Department of War spokeswoman Kingsley Wilson said Friday.

“The War Department will ensure that the President has credible options to ensure that our allies are no longer a paper tiger and instead do their part. We have no further comment on any internal deliberations to that effect.”

The leaders of other NATO countries — including Italy, France, and Germany — refused US military access during the Iran war, publicly denounced Trump’s campaign, or balked at his requests for help to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as global oil prices spiked.

At a Pentagon news conference on Friday, War Secretary Pete Hegseth called for European nations to take decisive action to help the US reopen the strait to shipping.

“America and the free world deserve allies who are capable, who are loyal, and who understand that being an ally is not a one-way street. It’s a two-way street,” he said. “We are not counting on Europe, but they need the Strait of Hormuz much more than we do, and might want to start doing less talking and having less fancy conferences in Europe and get in a boat.

“This is much more their fight than ours.”