President Trump says Muslim states must fight extremism

President Trump recognizes that Muslim leaders are best positioned to fight the spread of extremism in the Islamic world.

In a speech to the leaders of more than 50 Muslim nations, President Trump called on them to help.

President Trump was in Riyadh on May 21 to announce the opening of the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology. This center is U.S. partnership with the Gulf Cooperation Council devoted to stopping the spread of radicalization.

Located in Saudi Arabia, the heart of the Muslim world, the new center could be both a potent symbol and a potent actor in changing the way Islamic nations handle the spread of extremism internally.

Though the news in the West is often full of frightening reports of people dying at the hands of terrorists, the reality is that the vast majority of the casualties of Islamic extremism are Muslims in Muslim nations.

This puts the onus of combating terrorism on the nations whence it originates.

“The potential of this region has never, ever been greater,” Trump told the assembled leaders.

“But this untapped potential, this tremendous cause of optimism, is held at bay by bloodshed and terror. There can be no coexistence with this violence. There can be no tolerating it, no accepting it, no excusing it, and no ignoring it,” he said.