President Donald Trump sent a message to the world in Saudi Arabia: make business deals and the US won’t meddle in your affairs.
Trump, on the first overseas visit of his second term, praised the country’s leadership for its modernization push and said Iran, Lebanon and Syria all had the opportunity for a brighter future. The Middle East would be “defined by commerce, not chaos,” he said.
Fulfilling the wishes of many of his MAGA base, Trump rejected notions of nation-building and pressure on human rights that other US presidents once championed. Of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Trump said, “I like him a lot – I like him too much.”
While Trump has signaled that world view starting in his first term, the speech on Tuesday laid out his vision in the clearest terms yet after campaign promises to end “forever wars” like the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“The so-called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built and the interventionists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves,” Trump said. “In recent years, far too many American presidents have been afflicted with the notion that it’s our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use US policy to dispense justice for their sins.”
It fit with his broader willingness – staked out during his first term as well – to deepen relationships with leaders and political movements past US leaders had been more wary of, such as a closer partnership with El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele.
The speech also underscores how Trump has flipped the script on the traditional US approach. While he’s de-emphasizing rights in nations like Saudi Arabia, Iran or Syria, his administration has criticized traditional ally Germany over its treatment of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, and accepted white Afrikaners from another partner, South Africa, over what he’s called a “genocide” of farmers there.
“I think what’s iconoclastic about Trump is that he doesn’t really even pay lip service to these ideals in general,” said Stephen Pomper, chief of policy at the International Crisis Group and a National Security Council official under former President Barack Obama. “He’s waved them away.”
Successive administrations have wrestled with the role of Saudi Arabia and other Middle East nations with poor human rights records. Among them was former President Joe Biden, who backtracked from his characterization of bin Salman as a “pariah” for the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
Biden later abandoned his early-administration view that the defining battle of the world was one of democracies versus autocracies. Trump’s team has taken that a step farther, slashing foreign aid and proposing a State Department revamp that would downgrade the office that oversees democracy and human rights.
“President Trump is a peacemaker, he’s a dealmaker and he’s constantly putting Americans first,” State Department deputy spokesman Tommy Pigott said in response to questions about Trump’s approach. “When we approach foreign policy and the standards, we’re approaching that American First perspective that allows opportunities to pursue common interests.”
In Saudi Arabia, Trump praised the nation’s leadership for its modernization of the country. He cited the Saudi construction of one of the world’s tallest skyscrapers in Jeddah, juxtaposing it with the economic crisis in Iran.
He promised to lift sanctions against Syria now that President Bashar al-Assad has been toppled and was set to meet with Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, despite Sharaa’s past as an al-Qaeda-affiliated commander and the presence of extreme Islamists among his followers. That gained favor from some Democrats.
“We have a real opportunity I think in Syria,” Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire told reporters in Washington. “It’s important for us to provide the opportunity to keep those countries moving in a way that continues to keep out Iran and Russia.”
It all amounts to a clear message to other nations in the Middle East – they can have a brighter future if they partner with the US on trade and investment, and the US won’t hold past actions against them. The White House on Tuesday said it had received investment commitments of $600 billion from Saudi Arabia.
“I am willing to end past conflicts and forge new partnerships for a better and more stable world, even if our differences may be profound,” Trump said.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
