President avoids scolding Mideast rulers on human rights
RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA— U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday implored Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries to extinguish “Islamic extremism” emanating from the region, describing a “battle between good and evil” rather than a clash between the West and Islam.
In a pointed departure from his predecessor, Trump all but promised he would not publicly admonish Mideast rulers for human rights violations and oppressive reigns.
“We are not here to lecture — we are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be, or how to worship,” Trump said, speaking in an ornate room in the Saudi capital. “Instead, we are here to offer partnership — based on shared interests and values — to pursue a better future for us all.”
The president’s address was the centrepiece of his two-day visit to Saudi Arabia, his first overseas trip since his January swearing-in. For Trump, the trip is a reprieve from the crush of controversies that have marred his young presidency and an attempt to reset his relationship with a region and a religion he fiercely criticized a candidate.
During the 2016 U.S. campaign, Trump mused about his belief that “Islam hates us.” But on Sunday, standing before dozens of regional leaders, he said Islam was “one of the world’s great faiths.”
There was broad agreement that the president’s visit signalled a change in tone toward the region, and from Trump’s own previously strident anti-Muslim rhetoric. It was wellreceived among the assortment of monarchs and leaders who sat in the audience Sunday, under crystal chandeliers, grateful for a show of solidarity from a U.S. president as well as his promise not to meddle in their affairs.
But beyond the gilded ballroom, there was also plenty of skepticism about the U.S. embrace of Saudi Arabia, a country with its own troubled legacy of extremism that made it an awkward stage for a speech about the dangers of radicalism. With files from the Washington Post