← Videos · Foreign Policy & Defense

Trump in Saudi Arabia: 'My Job Is to Defend America'

May 14, 2025 · The White House · 0:01:08

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

President Donald Trump addressed an audience during his visit to Saudi Arabia, according to the White House video, under the theme of peace through strength.

Trump said it is God’s job to sit in judgment and his job to defend America and promote the fundamental interests of stability, prosperity and peace, as he put it. He cited 52 days of thunder and lightning on the Houthis in Yemen, as he stated the campaign’s length, calling it a swift, ferocious, decisive and extremely successful use of military force — hit them hard, got what the United States came for, and then got out, as he described it.

Trump said the gleaming marbles of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by so-called nation builders, neocons or liberal nonprofits, as he put it. The birth of a modern Middle East, he said, has been brought by the people of the region themselves, and peace, prosperity and progress came not from a radical rejection of their heritage but from embracing their national traditions, as he stated the argument, to applause in the room.

Why it matters

The excerpt distills Trump’s Middle East doctrine as he presented it in Riyadh: American force used briefly and decisively, and regional progress credited to the region’s own traditions.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump Visits Saudi Arabia: “My Job is to Defend America””, 2025-05-14 (official upload, embedded above; published 2025-05-14). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.