President Trump gave a speech at the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday and it was perhaps one of the most impactful speeches on U.S. foreign policy in our lifetime. So naturally the media is ignoring it.
The gist of the speech was this: The U.S. is done waging wars on foreign soil. We’re done telling other countries how to be. We’re done judging their leaders by our own standards. We are open for business, not war.
He admitted that what the U.S. has done in the name of “democracy” or “freedom” has done far more harm than good. He also paid respect to other cultures and their accomplishments despite Western pressures to tear apart their societies.
This may have been my favorite part:
“It’s crucial for the wider world to note this great transformation does not come from Western interventionists. Flying people in beautiful planes giving you lectures on how to live or how to govern your own affairs, no. The gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called ‘nation-builders,’ ‘neo-cons,’ or ‘liberal non-profits,’ like those who spent trillions failing to develop Kabul and Baghdad, so many other cities. Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought about by the people of the region themselves … developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own unique visions, and charting your own destinies. In the end, 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. Peace, prosperity, and progress ultimately came NOT from a radical rejection of your heritage, but rather from embracing your national traditions and embracing that same heritage that you love so dearly.”
He later said that past administrations 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… I believe it is God’s job to sit in judgment — my job to defend America and to promote the fundamental interests of stability, prosperity, and peace.”
This speech should be EVERYWHERE but the media has not caught on to its importance. The U.S. President is admitting that it went abroad in search of destruction, imposing its own values on others and that it does not want to do that any more. In the words of the Brownstone Institute’s Jeffrey Tucker, “It’s hugely significant and tragic that it took decades.”
