BOZELL: Trump Just Gave 'As Important a Foreign Policy Message from an American President This Century'

ForAmerica President David Bozell recently talked with The Washington Times' Tim Constantine about Donald Trump's recent visit to Arab states and how he might have just delivered the most impactful foreign policy speech of any president in decades.

Constantine asked Bozell, "You know, the President of the United States is traveling in the Middle East, he's making a number of stops there, and they're all Arab stops."

"This is not an Israel visit," he emphasized. "And so I'm wondering your impressions, what is the purpose of this visit? Is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? Or does it matter?"

Bozell replied, "Absolutely it matters."

He compared Trump's first term to his second regarding his speeches in Saudi Arabia.

Bozell said, "I remember Trump 1.0, I thought, I think maybe his best speech during the entire first administration was during his Saudi Arabia trip. Of course, nobody saw it because it was in the middle of the night."

"But he also gave a terrific speech in Saudi Arabia this time around," he explained. "You've seen essentially neoconservatism thrown into the ashbin of history."

Bozell was referring to Trump's May 13 speech in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where the president talked about the future of the Middle East. He said (emphasis added), “This great transformation has not come from Western interventionists... giving you lectures on how to live or how to govern your own affairs. No, the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called ‘nation-builders,’ ‘neo-cons,’ or ‘liberal non-profits,’ like those who spent trillions failing to develop Kabul and Baghdad, so many other cities. Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought about by the people of the region themselves… developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own unique visions, and charting your own destinies.”

Trump would add later, “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's words were a direct rebuke to American foreign policy of much of the quarter century prior.

Bozell emphasized what a a "forceful" case Trump made about the U.S. now trying to depart from the more neoconservative U.S. policies that dominated going back two decades.

"Donald Trump was quite forceful in admonishing those folks, particularly during the early 2000s, who thought sprinkling democracy seeds in some of these areas of the country was going to spread freedom and our way of life," he recalled. "And it did not work."

"And he made the case quite forcefully, perhaps as important of a foreign policy message from an American president this century," Bozell said.

"So on the scale of things, yeah, I think it's critically important," he added.

There have been many speeches from American president at various times that seem pivotal in retrospect.

Trump's Saudi speech last week might be one of them.

Constantine and Bozell continued to discuss President Trump's preference for diplomacy and how that path might work best for America's interests.