WASHINGTON — Vice President JD Vance is heading abroad on a visit combining diplomacy and sports activities, main President Donald Trump’s delegation to the 2026 Winter Olympics and afterward stopping in Armenia and Azerbaijan in a present of help for a peace agreement brokered by the White House final 12 months.
The weeklong journey could also be one in every of only some worldwide journeys Vance makes this 12 months. Trump and his Cupboard members are taking a tighter deal with home points — and home journey — heading into the November midterm elections, White Home Chief of Workers Susie Wiles mentioned final month.
On the opening ceremony of the Milan Cortina Winter Video games on Friday, the vp will lead a U.S. delegation that features his spouse, second woman Usha Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. Ambassador to Italy Tilman Fertitta. Former Olympic gold medalists may even be within the delegation, together with hockey participant sisters Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson and Monique Lamoureux-Morando; speedskater Apolo Ohno and determine skater Evan Lysacek.
However first, he plans to observe the U.S. women’s hockey team tackle Czechia in a preliminary recreation on Thursday.
Vance might be following within the footsteps of former vice presidents Joe Biden who attended the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in 2010 and Mike Pence who traveled to Pyeongchang, Korea in 2018. Former Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t attend the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing as a result of the Biden administration didn’t ship any diplomatic officers as a boycott over human rights concerns.
After Italy, Vance heads to Armenia and Azerbaijan, the place Trump has tasked him with constructing on a deal geared toward ending 4 a long time of battle between the 2 nations.
The peace settlement boosts the place of the U.S. within the area at a time when Russia’s affect is declining. The 2 former Soviet republics, Armenia and Azerbaijan, agreed underneath the deal to reopen key transportation routes and bolster cooperation with the USA in power, know-how and the economic system. The deal additionally requires the creation of a serious transit hall dubbed the Trump Route for Worldwide Peace and Prosperity. It’s anticipated to attach Azerbaijan and its autonomous Nakhchivan exclave, that are separated by a 32-kilometer-wide (20-mile-wide) patch of Armenian territory.
Vance’s mission on the journey to additional the peace effort is much like an task he took on in October, when he traveled to Israel weeks after a ceasefire was negotiated in its struggle with Hamas in Gaza, reiterating the Trump administration’s dedication to the hassle.
Along with the Israel cease final 12 months, Vance made journeys to France, Germany, Greenland, India, and the U.Okay. He twice visited Italy, assembly Pope Francis earlier than his dying, and later, his successor Pope Leo XIV.
Whereas presidents focus their overseas journey on conferences with a few of the U.S.’s greatest allies, vice presidents typically are referred to as on to make journeys slightly off the overwhelmed path. Biden, for instance, went to Mongolia in 2011, the place he tried some archery and was gifted a horse. In 2017, Pence visited Estonia, Georgia and Montenegro, the place he affirmed help for NATO, together with taking part in symbolic diplomacy with the planting of an oak tree.
For vice presidents, overseas journeys are partly “a operate of what the president likes to do — and never love to do,” mentioned Marc Brief, who was chief of workers to Pence throughout Trump’s first time period.
Generally, journeys can embrace sudden components, resembling Pence’s 2018 journey to the East Asia Summit in Singapore that included a casual assembly with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Brief additionally recalled a 2019 journey to Poland the place Pence was referred to as to fill in for the president who stayed house to observe Hurricane Dorian. That journey concerned a gathering with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“The truth, clearly, is the president has loads of different obligations,” Brief mentioned, “So it’s typically necessary that the USA be represented by the best official out there. In lots of circumstances, that’s simply the vp.”
