Riyadh (May 21, 2017): United States President Donald Trump sought to rally leaders from around the Muslim world on Sunday in a renewed campaign against extremism, rejecting the idea that the fight is a battle between religions even as he promised not to chastise them about human rights violations in their own countries, while he said that the fight against terrorism is a “battle between good and evil,” not a fight between “different faiths, different sects, or different civilizations.
“Drive them out of this earth,” he told regional leaders in Riyadh, as part of his first official trip abroad.
Mr Trump blamed Iran, Saudi Arabia’s rival, for instability in the region.
His speech is seen as an attempted reset with Muslims after his campaign rhetoric stirred concerns in the Islamic world.
Notably, the president did not utter the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism,” words former President Obama declined to use during his time in office but that Mr. Trump used frequently on the campaign trail. Mr. Trump emphasized the fight against terrorism isn’t a battle between different faiths, but “battle between good and evil” — and a battle that other Muslim nations must lead. The president called on Muslim nations to “drive them (terrorists) out of your Holy Land, and drive the out of this earth.”
“Muslim nations must be willing to take on terrorism and send its wicked ideology into oblivion,” Mr. Trump said.
Trump noted that Middle Eastern nations have sustained the highest number of casualties from terrorist attacks, describing it as a “tragedy of epic proportions.” The region’s “untapped potential…is held at bay by bloodshed and terror,” he said. “There can be no tolerating it,” he added.
Trump said that his administration is adopting a policy of “principled realism.
This is Trump’s first foreign trip as president, and he delivered the address to leaders of dozens of Arab and Muslim-majority nations. The Saudis say at least 37 leaders are present, NPR’s Jane Arraf reported from Riyadh.
Mr. Trump said the U.S. will not “impose” an American way of life on the Muslim-majority nations represented in the room where he gave his speech, while calling on them to unite in the global fight against terrorism.
Coming on the second day of Mr. Trump’s inaugural trip overseas as president, the address was designed as the centerpiece of his stop in Riyadh, where he met with Arab leaders and convened a larger gathering of Muslim leaders. In effect, the speech was meant as a reset from the harsher tone and policies Mr. Trump adopted as a candidate last year and in the early days of his presidency.
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