President Trump’s Middle East tour, the first foreign visit of his second presidency, got started with a bang. Breaking protocol, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman greeted President Trump on the tarmac, and for the next 12 hours, the two joked and laughed as they greeted cabinet members and dignitaries. At one point Trump was toted around in a golf cart driven by the Crown Prince himself, who wore a beatific smile. Perhaps one reason for the joy: The two nations signed a $142 billion arms deal.
But more significant than the MBS-Trump bromance was the speech Trump delivered, which denounced the failed forever wars of Republican administrations past as well as the failed appeasement of the Democrats, laying out the president’s signature strategy: peace through strength and peace through commerce as the path of the future.
In his June 2009 address in Egypt, President Obama defined his foreign policy as “based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition,” as the president put it. “Instead, they overlap, and share common principles—principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”