Trump blasts Western war hawks and 'interventionists', cites Saudi Arabia as Middle East model

US President Donald Trump during his foreign policy speech in Riyadh has hailed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and simultaneously slammed "neocons", war hawks and "interventionists".

In the Saudi capital on Tuesday, Trump held up the country as an example for the Middle East, saying it has achieved a "modern miracle the Arabian way," blasting efforts of "western intervention" in the region.

Trump said Riyadh "is becoming not just a seat of government, but a major business, cultural and high-tech capital."

"It's crucial for the wider world to know this great transformation has not come from western intervention or flying people in beautiful planes giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs, no," he said.

The US leader said the gleaming marbles of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi "were not created by the so-called nation builders, neocons or liberal non-profits 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. ... 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."

"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," the president added.

Trump is in Saudi Arabia for the first leg of his three-nation visit to the Middle East this week.

His first visit is focused on deal-making with key Mideast ally while shared concerns about Iran's nuclear programme and Israel's genocidal war in Gaza drag on in the background.