When President Trump from the stage of a lush ballroom in Saudi Arabia stated that the United States were being done by national structure and drastic, that the super power of the world would no longer give “your lectures on how to live,” his audience burst into applause.
He effectively approached for decades of American policy in the middle and played for grievances who were broadcast for a long time in cafes and sitting rooms from Morocco to Oman.
“Ultimately, the so -called Natiebouwers destroyed many more countries than they built,” Mr Trump said on Tuesday during a radical address at an investment conference in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. “And the interventionalists intervened in complex societies that they didn’t even understand.”
He insisted on the people in the region to ‘map your own destination in your own way’.
Responses to his speech quickly spread on mobile phone screens in an mid -east where the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan – and more recently, American support for Israel because it intensifies his war in Gaza, is that On the edge of hunger – are ingrained in public consciousness and are criticized by both monarchists and dissidents.
Sultan Alamer, A Saudi Academic, joke That Mr. Trump’s comments sounded as if they came from Frantz Fanon, a Marxist thinker from the 20th century who wrote about the dynamics of colonial oppression. Syrians then placed party memes then Mr. Trump announced That he would put an end to American sanctions on their war -destroyed country “to give them a chance of quantity.”
And in Yemen – another country entangled at war and subject to American sanctions – Abdullatif Mohammed implied agreement with Mr Trump’s notion of sovereignty, even while expressing frustration with the American intervention.
“When will countries recognize us and let us live like the rest of the world?” Mr. Mohammed, a 31-year-old restaurant manager in the capital, said Sana when he was asked about the speech. American air strikes pounded his city under both former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. If Mr. Trump, aimed at the Houthi militia supported by Iran, to Mr Trump abruptly explained a ceasefire This month.
“Who is Trump to grant grace, to raise or impose sanctions on a country?” Mohammed said. “But that’s how the world works.”
Mr. Trump’s comments came at the start of a four-day trip through three rich Gulf Arab states: Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He was largely focused on business deals, including more than $ 1 trillion in investments In the United States promised by the three Gulf government.
But his address in Riyad made it clear that he had broader diplomatic ambitions for his journey. He expressed a ‘fiery wish’ that Saudi -Arabia follows two neighbors, the Emirates and Bahrain, to recognize the state of Israel. (Saudi officials have said that that will happen only after the establishment of a Palestinian state.) He said that he had a sharp desire to reach a deal with Iran about his nuclear program, adding that he “never believed in permanent enemies.”
And on Wednesday, He met The new leader of Syria, Ahmed al-Shara a former jihadist who led a rebel Alliance driven the brutal strong man Bashar al-Assad. Mr. Trump posed for a photo with Mr. Al-Shara and the Saudi crown prince in an image that dropped the jaws in the region and beyond.
“Guy, what happened is really incredible,” said Mr. Mohammed, the Yemeni restaurant manager.
The address of Mr. Trump was a sometimes rattling speech that lasted more than 40 minutes.
In Saudi Aarabia, the birthplace of Islam, he failed to mention that he said earlier that “Islam hates us” and that the Quran teaches “a very negative atmosphere”. Instead, he praised the heritage of the Kingdom.
His kindness for the Saudi crowd stood in contrast to Mr. Bides spawner approach of crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto Saudi ruler who has a Years long -term bombing in Yemen and has supervised a widespread Act against different opinions. When Mr. Biden visited Saudi Arabia, he said he told the crown prince that he believed he was responsible for the 2018 kill And apart from Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist by Washington Post who is critical of the royal family’s rule.
Mr. Instead, Trump did not praise the Arabian Peninsula and Prince Mohammed, who called him an “incredible man.”
“In recent years, far too many American presidents have been hit by the idea that it is our job to look at the souls of foreign leaders and to use American policy to give justice for their sins,” Mr Trump said.
His comments had some Arab listeners concerned about what the potential evaporation of American pressure on human rights violations could mean for their country.
Ibrahim Almadi is the son of one 75-year-old American-Saudi Dual National It was arrested in the Kingdom about critical posts on social media; His father was released, but is not allowed to leave Saudi Arabia. In an interview, Mr. Almadi said that he had hoped that Mr. Trump would talk to Saudi officials about his Father’s case During his visit – and that he had tried without success to reach officials in his administration. He sees it as the type of human rights breach that previous American authorities would have forced Saudi officials.
“They normalize my father’s case, which is not normal,” he said about the Trump government.
The White House did not immediately comment on the answers to the president or that the president or his assistants had human rights issues, including the case of Mr Almadi, with Saudi officials.
Abdullah Alaoudh, a member of a Saudi opposition party in exile and the son of a prominent spiritual in the Kingdom, called the speech a public relations stunt for Prince Mohammed.
He added that he thought it was ironic that Mr Trump praised an center -East “by the people of the region” when he spoke with a public strewn with foreign billionaires and “for a authoritarian leader who has silenced all the deviating opinions.”
Mr. Trump received a standing ovation in the Balzaal in Riyad.
“The president’s speech was actually very consistent,” said Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan at a press conference on Wednesday, in which it described as an “approach to partnership, of mutual respect.”
Mr. Alamer, a senior resident Fellow at the new Lines Institute, a research group in Washington, said in an interview that the words of the President themes reflected “that are normally associated with left and anti-imperialist intellectuals.”
“Although this is surprising in the sense that we, as Arabs, were the subject of American lectures and interventionism, it is also not surprising when we consider that new right-wing populist movements in the Golf if the US have borrowed part of this rhetoric from the left and socialists and repeatedly repeatedly a conservative world freight,” said the Heer. “
Negad El-Boraie, a prominent Egyptian human rights lawyer, said that he was reluctant to read a lot in the speech of Mr Trump, given that he was in Saudi Arabia to talk about investments mainly.
But for Mr. El-Boraie, Mr Trump was only honest about what the American presidents had always cared for American interests in the event of how many previous presidents draped their agenda in comments about human rights and democracy.
“The US prioritizing its own interests,” he said. “Trump honestly shows his opinion, and that is clear in all his speeches.”
Shuaib Almosawa contributed reporting from Sana, Yemen; Rania Khaled from Cairo; Ismael to Van Dubai; Hwaida Saad And Jacob Roubai Van Beirut; And Muhammad Haj Kadour van Damascus.
- Advertisement -
