Story highlights
Trump left for his first presidential foreign trip on Friday
Here's guide to what his travels will include
President Donald Trump is abroad for the first time as commander in chief, undertaking an ambitious agenda of diplomacy in a nine-day, five-country trip. He’s taken almost his entire senior team with him.
Here’s what to expect:
What
Trump wants to introduce himself to a global population that remains deeply skeptical of his agenda. While he’s kept a steady pace of phone calls and meetings with foreign leaders since taking office, this is the first time he’s taking Air Force One to foreign soil.
His advisers say his trip has three key objectives: to reaffirm US leadership in the world, to build key relationships with world leaders and to display unity with three of the world’s great religions.
But amid a wave of scandals back home, advisers also hope the trip can help reset the narrative for a beleaguered new president.
Where and when
Trump is planning stops in five different countries during his trip, with a variety of events and photo-ops on his schedule.
Saudi Arabia
Saturday 5/20
- Meet with King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and other key Saudi officials
- Sign a $110 billion arms sale deal
Sunday 5/21
- Meet with leaders from other Gulf Cooperation Council nations
- Deliver a speech to leaders from more than 50 Muslim nations
- Participate in a Twitter town hall
Israel
Monday 5/22
- Meet with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin
- Lay a wreath at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust remembrance center
- Deliver remarks at the Israel Museum
- Meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
- Say a prayer at the Western Wall (joined by daughter Ivanka Trump)
Tuesday 5/23
- Meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem, in the West Bank
- Visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
Vatican City
Wednesday 5/24
- Audience with Pope Francis (joined by first lady Melania Trump)
- Meet with the Vatican secretary of state and tour St. Peter’s Basilica
- Meet with Italian President Sergio Mattarella
Brussels
Wednesday 5/24
- Meet with the king and prime minister of Belgium
Thursday 5/25
- Meet with European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker
- Working lunch with French President Emmanuel Macron
- Deliver remarks at unveiling of new NATO memorial
- Participate in NATO leaders meeting and dinner
Sicily
Friday 5/26
- Participate in G7 meetings
- Attend concert by La Scala Philharmonic Orchestra
- Attend leaders dinner
Saturday 5/27
- Participate in G7 meetings
- Deliver remarks to American servicemen and women at US air base
Who?
Trump is taking almost his entire White House team with him on his crucial first foreign trip – a highly ambitious nine-day tour with stops in Saudi Arabia, Israel, Italy and Belgium.
But there is one notable exception –White House counselor Kellyanne Conway. Conway remained in Washington with Vice President Mike Pence, who will run the White House in the President’s absence.
Here is a manifest of the West Wing power players who all belong to the famously competing factions within the President’s fractious inner circle and will be at Trump’s side as he travels:
- Melania Trump – first lady
- Reince Priebus – White House chief of staff
- Stephen Miller – senior policy adviser
- Jared Kushner – senior adviser, foreign policy point man and Trump’s son-in-law
- Steve Bannon – chief White House strategist
- Ivanka Trump – adviser to the President and Trump’s daughter
- H.R. McMaster – national security adviser
- Sean Spicer – White House press secretary
- Sarah Huckabee Sanders – deputy press secretary
- Michael Anton – National Security Council spokesman
- Hope Hicks – White House director of strategic communications
- Gary Cohn – National Economic Council director
- Dina Powell – deputy national security adviser
- Josh Raffel – communications adviser
This story will be updated as more information becomes available
