‘Tremendous, tremendous day for US’

– US President Donald Trump was to make one of the most important speeches of his career yesterday – talking to 50 Muslim leaders in Saudi Arabia.

His intention is said to be of his “hopes for a peaceful vision of Islam” and came a day after Washington took issue with Shiite Iran.

Trump’s major speech on Islam took place on his first foreign trip as president, and in the cradle of the Islamic faith.

It also comes a day after the US and the Sunni Gulf kingdom signed agreements worth many billions, almost a third of that military-related.

“That was a tremendous day. Tremendous investments in the United States,” Trump said on Saturday at talks with Saudi King Salman.

“Hundreds of billions of dollars of investments into the United States and jobs, jobs, jobs.”

His Secretary of State Rex Tillerson set the tone on Saturday when he urged Iran’s newly re-elected President Hassan Rouhani to dismantle his country’s “network of terrorism”.

Yesterday’s speech on Islam would have been onerous for any US president, but for the real-estate billionaire it has the potential to be a high-risk exercise.

The speech was touted to be an expected landmark address to the Islamic world, similar to Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo in 2009. – AFP