VP Vance’s global trips blend diplomacy, deals, soft power and family time

WASHINGTON (AP) — When JD Vance was running for vice president, he walked across an airport tarmac in Wisconsin one August day when his campaign travels happened to intersect those of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and approached Air Force Two. Besides wanting to take a poke at Republican Donald Trump’s rival for avoiding the press, Vance said, “I just wanted to check out my future plane.”

It’s an aircraft he now knows well.

In the opening months of Trump’s term, Vice President Vance has traveled all over the globe — family in tow — to conduct top-level diplomacy for the administration, in addition to taking a number of domestic trips. His international forays have featured a mix of meetings with world leaders, sharply crafted speeches advancing U.S. policy, “soft power” appearances to build goodwill and family time at tourist sites along the way.

Diplomacy before family and cultural sights

Vance’s trips have included a five-day trip to Europe in February, a hastily reorganized trek to Greenland in March and a tour of Italy and India in April that was notable for the vice president’s brief meeting with Pope Francis the day before the pontiff died.

In his first big moment on the world stage in February, Vance pressed Trump’s “America first” message at an artificial intelligence summit in Paris and spoke of maintaining U.S. dominance in the surging industry. From there, he attended a security conference in Munich, where the vice president left his audience stunned with his lecturing remarks about democracy and scant focus on Russia’s war against Ukraine.

In March, Vance delivered pointed remarks while in Greenland, scolding Denmark for not investing more in the security of its territory and demanding a new approach. Trump has upset many Greenlanders with his aggressive claims that the U.S. needs to take control of the island away from Denmark.

There’s been dealmaking, too.

In India last month, Vance announced after meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi that they had agreed on a negotiating framework for a U.S.-India trade deal. In Italy, he held talks with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, in addition to his separate audiences with the pope and a top Vatican official.

Family time follows Vance’s diplomatic work

Vance has been accompanied on his overseas trips by his wife, Usha, and their 7- and 5-year-old sons and 3-year-old daughter. The kids are usually in pajamas as they board Air Force Two for the overnight flights.

The Vances have gazed aloft at the newly restored Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City and been photographed, with the children in traditional Indian dress, in front of the Taj Mahal in Agra. Without their children, the Vances also visited Dachau in Germany.

Brad Blakeman, a former senior official in George W. Bush’s administration who has provided planning advice to Vance’s office for some of his foreign travel, said that, while some personal time is woven in, these are not vacations.

“You try and balance the policy with the culture aspect of the trip so that you’re honoring the customs and culture of the places that you are visiting,” he said. Visiting iconic cultural sites while abroad shows respect and builds rapport with host nations that can enhance diplomacy.

It’s also important to be mindful that the president and vice president travel at the public’s expense, he said.

“That’s the balancing act that always has to be done because of the stewardship of the taxpayers’ money,” he said.

Joel Goldstein, a law professor at Saint Louis University who specializes in the U.S. vice presidency, said the journeys also could be intended to build Vance’s foreign policy chops.

“Part of foreign travel for a vice president is establishing a national security and diplomatic credential,” he said, noting that it’s particularly important for Vance.

At age 40, Vance served just two years in the Senate before ascending to the office.

Vance displays the habits of a millennial

Vance is also the second-youngest person and the first of the millennial generation to hold the job.

“Generations” author Jean Twenge, a San Diego State University psychology professor who studies generational differences, said the ease with which Vance moves between work and leisure is emblematic of his generation.

“The research suggests that, just with internet use and social media use, the lines between work time and family time blur, that you switch tasks much more quickly than, say, Gen Xers or boomers,” she said.

Vance frequently switches gears on the road. Last week, he wedged in a quick beer with service members in Germany — and autographed the “kegerator” built by one airman — after days of wall-to-wall official and cultural activities throughout Italy and India.

Some of the Vances’ activities have been unwelcome

Usha Vance was originally slated for a solo trip to Greenland with one of their sons to attend a dogsled race. But that plan was scrapped amid growing discontent from the governments of Greenland and Denmark over the visit and Trump’s tough talk of the U.S. taking the territory away from a NATO ally. Instead, the vice president joined the trip, and their visit was limited to a U.S. military base there.

On his Italy trip, Vance took heat on X for being photographed inside the Sistine Chapel. Photography there is usually forbidden, but the session turned out to have been sanctioned by the Vatican, as has happened on past visits by U.S. dignitaries.

A decision during the same trip to close the Roman Colosseum to the public so Usha Vance and the children could take a tour drew some grumbling from tourists stranded outside. A consumer group has since filed a legal complaint.

In India, the Taj Mahal, normally swarming with tourists, was also closed to visitors to accommodate the Vances, according to local media reports.

American officials are often formally invited to make such cultural diversions, and it’s not unusual for the U.S. Secret Service, which provides protection for top U.S. officials, to ask for the sites to be closed to the public for security reasons during presidential and vice presidential tours.

The Vances appear to have tried on occasion to avoid such disruptions. In France, the family visited the Louvre on a Tuesday, a day when the museum is closed to the public.

Such trips have a long history

Other recent vice presidents also have taken family members along on trips. Presidents do, as well.

As vice president, Democrat Joe Biden often took one of his older granddaughters on trips, a practice he continued as president. Presidents’ children, including Malia and Sasha Obama and Chelsea Clinton, went along on some trips with their parents, too.

Practices differ, but the idea is the same: Time in office is short, so make the most of it and expose your children to the world.

Usha Vance said as much during the family visit to India, where her parents were born. She hadn’t visited in decades, and her husband and children had never been there.

In an interview with India’s NDTV, she said she’d been anxious to make the “trip of a lifetime” with them.

“It’s been something that I’ve wanted to share with my new nuclear family,” the U.S. second lady said, adding that they knew Vance would have a chance to visit India as vice president. “We always knew that, when that opportunity arose, we would all come with him.”

“We think of it as sort of a gateway, the first of many trips to come, I hope,” she said.

Soft diplomacy is another goal

One aim of vice presidential travel abroad is often soft diplomacy, or the building of favorable attitudes toward the U.S. through imagery and symbolism.

When Vance, with his wife of Indian descent and their children, is photographed at the Taj Mahal, it sends a message of solidarity with that nation. When he visits the Vatican and worships there, it emphasizes common ground with Catholics around the world.

Likewise, when Vance appears in public with his children, it could help drive home his quest to encourage large families and build goodwill among American voters, said University of Dayton political scientist Christopher Devine, co-author of “Do Running Mates Matter?”

“I wonder, with JD Vance, if it’s an effort to soften his image,” Devine said. “He’s someone who has not been particularly popular ever since he entered the national scene, and appearing with family tends to make people a little more likable, harder to hate.”

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Smyth reported from Columbus, Ohio.