Trump visits the Middle East: All the countries visited by US presidents

EXPLAINER

For the second time in his presidency, Donald Trump has chosen Saudi Arabia as the destination for his first official state visit, following brief stops in Italy and the Vatican for Pope Francis’s funeral.

Trump arrived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday just before 10am local time (07:00 GMT), where he was greeted by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The US president will visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from May 13 to 16, 2025.

Which countries did Trump visit in his first term?

Trump visited 25 countries during his first term as the US president from January 2017 to January 2021.

The countries that Trump visited most during his first term include:

1. France – Four times
2. Japan, United Kingdom – Three times
3. Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Italy, South Korea, Switzerland, Vietnam – Two times
4. Afghanistan, Argentina, Canada, China, Finland, India, Iraq, Israel, North Korea, Palestine, Philippines, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Vatican City – Once

The order of his trips is listed in the infographic below.

Trump became the first US president to make the Middle East his first foreign destination, visiting Saudi Arabia on May 20-21, 2017.

He held bilateral talks with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz and then-Deputy Crown Prince and Defence Minister Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) as the two countries signed a $110bn arms deal.

Trump also took part in the Riyadh Summit, a gathering of leaders from more than 50 Muslim-majority nations.

After visiting Saudi Arabia, Trump travelled to Israel, where he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and became the first sitting US president to visit the Western Wall in Jerusalem. He then met Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem.

Trump’s visit to India on February 24-25, 2020, was his final international trip before the COVID-19 pandemic led to global travel restrictions.

The first country visited by each US president

A US president’s first trip is often seen as a signal of their priorities and foreign policy direction, setting the tone for how the US will engage with the world over the next four years.

In 1906, Theodore Roosevelt became the first sitting US president to travel abroad when he visited Panama to inspect the construction of the Panama Canal, a key project for US trade and military strategy.

More recently, in 1993, Bill Clinton’s first trip was to Canada, setting the stage for NAFTA. In 2001, George W Bush visited Mexico, focusing on trade and immigration. Barack Obama’s first trip in 2009 was also to Canada, emphasising multilateral diplomacy. Joe Biden’s first trip in 2021 was to the UK, where he attended the G7 Summit, highlighting traditional alliances and climate change.

The graphic below shows the first country visited by each US president.

Number of first presidential trips:

1. Canada – 5 (Kennedy, Johnson, HW Bush, Clinton, Obama)
2. UK – 4 (Wilson, FD Roosevelt, Carter, Biden)
3. Panama – 3 (T Roosevelt, Taft, Harding)
4. Mexico – 3 (Ford, Reagan, Bush)
5. Belgium – 2 (Truman, Nixon)
6. Saudi Arabia – 2 (Trump, first and second term)
7. Cuba – 1 (Coolidge)
8. Honduras – 1 (Hoover)
9. South Korea – 1 (Eisenhower)

All US presidential trips abroad (1906-2024)

The table below shows the more than 800 presidential trips conducted by 21 of the US’s most recent presidents, starting with Theodore Roosevelt in 1906.

The countries visited the most number of times include:

1. UK (69 times)
2. France (51 times)
3. Canada (41 times)
4. Mexico (35 times)
5. Italy (33 times)

The countries visited by the most number of US presidents include:

1. Italy (15 presidents)
2. Mexico (15 presidents)
3. UK (15 presidents)
4. France (14 presidents)
5. Vatican City (14 presidents)