Donald Trump in the Middle East: the campaign trail quotes he'd rather forget

Donald Trump has tempered his language during a presidential visit to the Middle East, failing to use the phrase “radical islamic terrorism“, which he often employed on the campaign trail.

The Republican said he was “honoured to be received by such gracious hosts,” as he was given the highest civilian honour in Saudi Arabia — despite having previously criticised the country.

In October 2016, the businessman-turned-politician accused the foundation run by Bill and Hillary Clinton of corruption for accepting charitable contributions from Saudi Arabia.

“You talk about women and women’s rights. These are people that push gays off buildings,” he said. “These are people that kill women and treat women horribly, and yet you take their money.”

But over the weekend, he said: “I have always heard about the splendour of your country and the kindness of your people, but words do not do justice to the grandeur of this sacred place.”

As a presidential candidate, Trump chastised Barack Obama for failing to use the words “radical Islamic terrorism,” a phrase often avoided by presidents, including the Democrat and George W Bush.

Trump, who missed an event at a youth forum in Riyadh because he was “exhausted”, called for the Middle East to combat “the crisis of Islamic extremism, and the Islamists and Islamic terror of all kinds.”

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“This is a battle between good and evil,” Trump said. “Drive them out of your places of worship. Drive them out of your communities. Drive them out of your Holy Land. And drive them out of this earth.”

The change in language indicates that Trump recognises that the fight is not against Islam as a religion, but against those who commit terrorism in the name of Islam.

Trump had been told not to use the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism” by those around him. White House national security adviser HR McMaster seem to confirm he would not use the phrase ahead of the visit.

“The president will call it whatever he wants to call it,” McMaster said on ABC. “But I think it’s important that, whatever we call it, we recognise that [extremists] are not religious people.

“And, in fact, these enemies of all civilisations, what they want to do is to cloak their criminal behaviour under this fall idea of some kind of religious war,” he said.

On a Fox News appearance, Trump previously posted question: “Who blew up the World Trade Center?”

“It wasn’t the Iraqis, it was Saudi — take at look at Saudi Arabia, open the documents,” he said. “If you open the documents, I think you’re going to see that it was Saudi Arabia, it wasn’t Iraq.”

Ahead of Trump’s visit to Israel, Iran accused the United States of selling arms to “dangerous terrorists” in the Middle East and of spreading “Iranophobia”.

“Once again, by his repetitive and baseless claims about Iran, the American president … tried to encourage the countries of the region to purchase more arms by spreading Iranophobia,” foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said.

Over the weekend, the president signed a $109.7 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia.