Trump’s Riyadh Speech Heralds The End Of Failed Neocon Foreign PolicyTruly looking out for American interests means refraining from trying to remake foreign countries in our own image.The Federalist, May 14, 2025
In what was probably the most important presidential speech in decades, President Donald Trump repudiated decades of failed interventionist U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East during an official visit to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday.
Not only did Trump lambast neocon “nation-building” in the region, he more or less vowed never to pursue the kinds of neocon misadventures that spilt American blood and treasure over the past 25 years in the insane pursuit of creating western liberal democracies in the Middle East.
In stark and unmistakable terms, the president reminded the world of the abject failure of decades of neocon and liberal interventionist U.S. foreign policy under both Democrat and Republican leadership. He specifically called out the trillions of U.S. tax dollars wasted in a totally unsuccessful attempt to turn Iraq and Afghanistan into western-style democracies as part of the global war on terror.
“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,” Trump said. “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 failing to develop Kabul and Baghdad.”
His speech, which came after a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the signing of economic agreements totaling $600 billion in new trade deals, heralds a new approach not just to Mideast politics but to American foreign policy generally. By disavowing the nation-building ideology of the neocons and liberal interventionists that dominated U.S. foreign policy under the Bush, Obama, and Biden presidencies, Trump articulated a vision of American engagement with the world that is both more tolerant, more transactional, and less concerned with the internal affairs of other nations.
More:
https://thefederalist.com/2025/05/14/trumps-riyadh-speech-heralds-the-end-of-failed-neocon-foreign-policy/
