From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, May 13, 2025
Trump slams ‘neocons’ and ‘interventionists’ during Riyadh speech
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleJacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
US President Donald Trump takes a shot at “neocons” and “interventionists” during his foreign policy speech in Riyadh.
“It’s crucial for the wider world to know this great transformation [in the Middle East] has not come from Western interventionists, or flying people in beautiful planes giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs,” Trump says.
“In the end, the so-called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built and the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves,” he continues.
“No, the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called ‘nation builders,’ neocons, or liberal non-profits, like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop Baghdad and so many other cities,” Trump says.
“Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought by the people of the region themselves — the people that are right here, the people [who] have lived here all their lives, developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own unique visions and charting your own destinies in your own way.”
“You achieved a modern miracle the Arabian way,” he adds.
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