Middle East, explained.
US President Donald Trump speaks during the Saudi-US investment forum at the King Abdul Aziz International Conference Center in Riyadh on May 13, 2025. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/Getty)
A speech in the Middle East offers insights into Trump's views on China.
Subscribe to The Informer for monthly expert analysis, and to Events for advance notice of visiting world leaders and distinguished guests.
You may unsubscribe from Lowy Institute newsletters at any time. For information on our privacy practices and how to unsubscribe, see our Privacy Policy.
Trump's extraordinary Saudi speechTrump's extraordinary Saudi speech
Since before the Trump administration took office, experts have debated the competing schools of foreign policy thought among his top advisers. Two European Council on Foreign Relations experts, Majda Ruge and Jeremy Shapiro, helpfully broke down these divisions into three competing tribes: primacists, prioritisers and restrainers.
But while it was relatively easy to place Trump's advisers in one of these three camps, what about the president himself? Ruge and Shapiro place him tentatively in the restrainer group, "those who hark back to the Jacksonian tradition of American foreign policy. They advocate strength at home and restraint in deploying and using military force abroad." I would add that, while restrainers are interested in economic competition with China, they see little value in defending America's strategic leadership in Asia, and thus see no vital interest in fighting China over Taiwan. Restrainers are also ideologically unmotivated - they see no reason for others to adopt US values or institutions.
Naturally, Trump's speech at the Saudi-US Investment Forum earlier this week had nothing to say about Taiwan, but it did offer a few glimpses into his worldview, which accord with the sense that he belongs in the restrainer school, and that he's not particularly hawkish on China.
This passage is worthy of note for its wholesale rejection of the neoconservative project set in motion by the George W Bush administration to democratise and liberalise foreign nations, by force if necessary. But it's also a rebuke of liberal internationalism, a close cousin of neoconservatism and the preferred term in Democratic Party foreign policy circles. Instead, Trump embraces local solutions without a word of censure if those solutions are undemocratic or illiberal. One can easily read a subtextual message to the Chinese Communist Party: I don't care how you run your country, and I am certainly not out to change it.
...the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation-builders, neocons or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop Kabul, Baghdad, so many other cities. Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought by the people of the region themselves, the people that are right here, the people that have lived here all their lives developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own unique visions, and charting your own destinies in your own way. It's really incredible what you've done.
In the end, the so-called nation-builders wrecked far more nations than they built, and the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves. They told you how to do it, but they had no idea how to do it themselves. Peace, prosperity, and progress ultimately came not from a radical rejection of your heritage, but rather from embracing your national traditions and embracing that same heritage that you love so dearly, and it's something only you could do. You achieved a modern miracle the Arabian way.
Second, here's an extract illustrating Trump's tortured relationship with American military power. As always, Trump's prepared remarks are mixed with extemporaneous riffs, and in the combination, you can detect the moral dilemma he's wrestling with. He sees the value of military strength as a deterrent, but also that it seems "an awfully big waste of money". And again, in the first and last sentences of this passage, we see a rejection of the idea that America's role is to export its political system and impose its values on the world:
In recent years, far too many American presidents have been afflicted with the notion that it's our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use US policy to dispense justice for their sins. They loved using our very powerful military, and now it's really the most powerful it's ever been. We just are getting a budget approved, $1 trillion, the highest budget we've ever had in history for military, $1 trillion, and we're getting the greatest missiles, the greatest weapons, and I hate to do it, but you have to do it because we believe in peace through strength. You have to have the strength, otherwise bad things could happen. But hopefully, we'll never have to use any of those weapons. It seems to be an awfully big waste of money if you're never going to use them, but hopefully we'll never have to use them because the destructive power of some of those weapons are like nobody's seen before. I believe it is God's job to sit in judgment, my job, to defend America and to promote the fundamental interest of stability, prosperity, and peace.
One final troubling note. It's clear from this passage that Trump believes the United States has a massive military lead over every other nation. A little later he says, "We have the greatest military, the strongest military, stronger than any… Nobody's even close". This is dangerously off the mark. China is far closer than Trump thinks.
In any crisis with Beijing, Trump's decision-making will be determined in part by how strong he thinks America's military is compared to that of China. Yes, the United States still spends by far the most money and has a larger and more capable military overall, but any fight would occur in China's backyard, where China can bring almost all of its military weight to bear. The United States would be operating far from home shores and would need to set aside a big chunk of its military to meet other commitments around the globe. So, the gap between them is now vanishingly small. Believing otherwise may prompt rash decisions.
About the author
Sam Roggeveen
Sam Roggeveen is Program Director of the Lowy Institute’s International Security Program. He is the author of The Echidna Strategy: Australia's Search for Power and Peace (Opens in new window), published by La Trobe University Press in 2023.
The most-pressing world events explained by Lowy Institute experts and global contributors, in your inbox, every Thursday.
You may unsubscribe from The Interpreter at any time. For information on our privacy practices and how to unsubscribe, see our Privacy Policy.
