Trump traveling to areas where delicate diplomacy is usually required.<\/b>
\nFor his first trip abroad as president, Donald Trump later this month will venture into some highly sensitive geopolitical regions, taking on an itinerary that might test even the most adroitly diplomatic of leaders.
He will start in the stridently conservative Sunni Islamic kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where the most revered sites in Islam are located. From there, he heads straight to Israel, still diplomatically ostracized by much of the Arab world. In Israel and in the Palestinian territories, he will have to deftly balance the conflicting interests of both sides as he seeks to revive peace negotiations.
When treading such turf, protocol matters greatly, and an errant word \u2014 or tweet \u2014 can have major repercussions. For a leader like Trump, often given to impulsive, off-the-cuff statements, that could be a challenge.
Next comes a stop at the Vatican to meet Pope Francis, whom Trump last year called \u201cdisgraceful\u201d for challenging the then-candidate\u2019s pledge to build a wall along the U. S. border with Mexico. Finally, Trump attends a top-level gathering of NATO, which he once deemed obsolete before reversing himself, and meets with leaders of the European Union, whose potential disintegration he has applauded.
Since foreign travel by a sitting U. S. president became routine, most went abroad quickly after taking office \u2014 even if only as far as Mexico or Canada. The last president not to leave the United States in his first 100 days was Jimmy Carter, who waited until May to visit Britain for an economic summit. President Obama had traveled to nine nations by the time his first four months had elapsed.
Initially it appeared Trump\u2019s first trip would be brief, to Belgium and Italy for back-to-back meetings of NATO and G-7 leaders, respectively.
But behind the scenes, some of the president\u2019s top aides \u2014 including son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner \u2014 were planning a more robust itinerary intended to send a message about the kind of leadership Trump would show on the world stage. And the president took the rare step of announcing his travel plans publicly himself, in the Rose Garden on Thursday at an event with religious leaders.
\u201cAmerica can be first but still be a global leader, \u201d White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a later briefing with reporters. \u201cAmerica has to be a global leader.\u201d
Three administration officials, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss travel aims, said the overarching goal of the trip was to demonstrate an America \u201cregaining strategic confidence\u201d in the world.
\u201cAmerican leadership has a lot to do with the ability to combine diplomacy with economic strength, the ability to communicate effectively, and to build relationships with leaders and with peoples, \u201d one of the officials said. \u201cIt also has a lot to do with the willingness to use military force when it\u2019s necessary.\u201d
In some respects, the Saudi and Israeli stopovers may be quite comfortable territory for Trump. For one, both are states with extremely high levels of security and can easily keep any protests at bay.
In all likelihood, nowhere outside the United States will Trump be better received than in Israel, given his support for the conservative government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu, who visibly disdained Trump\u2019s predecessor Barack Obama, can be expected to welcome the new president like a long-lost relative. One of Netanyahu\u2019s chief financial backers and a big investor in Israel, American business tycoon Sheldon Adelson, is also a major supporter of Trump. .
A high-profile first stop in Saudi Arabia, a theocracy whose record on human rights and treatment of women often comes under sharp international criticism, was an unusual choice for a U. S. leader. But there, too, officials felt estranged from Obama and eager to host a new American president.
Discussions with the oil-rich kingdom\u2019s leadership began shortly after the election, initiated by the Saudis with a goal of starting \u201ca new relationship with America, \u201d a senior administration official said. Those talks ultimately led to plans for a summit between the president and Muslim leaders focused on how to defeat Islamic State and confront the larger threat of radicalization.
Trump could face a backlash, however, from conservative supporters who note that Saudi Arabia is actually a wellspring of the brand of radical Islamic ideology embraced by some terrorist organizations, and the homeland of most of the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Trump \u201crecognizes the importance of bringing all of our partners together, and certainly looking for ways that we can combat some of the greatest threats to all of the world, \u201d Sanders said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s going to take some buy-in, and some of the people in the Middle East taking a larger stake in that process.\u201d
The most awkward stop is likely to be the Vatican. Trump met Thursday with a delegation of Roman Catholic cardinals and other church leaders, and may have been briefed on papal protocol.
Francis has implicitly criticized Trump\u2019s hostile views toward Mexicans and immigrants, and especially his pledge to build a massive wall separating the United States and Mexico. \u00ab\u00a0A person who only thinks about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian, \u00a0\u00bb the pontiff said in February 2016 \u2014 a view he repeated after the president\u2019s inauguration.
Then-candidate Trump shot back in terms a politician has rarely used about a pope.
\u00ab\u00a0For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful, \u00a0\u00bb Trump said, calling himself a \u201cgood Christian.\u201d
But even beyond that exchange, the pontiff and the president could not be more different. Francis, a Jesuit from Argentina, has made concern for the environment and charity toward the poor the cornerstones of his papacy.
Popes, by tradition, meet with any world leader who requests it, no matter how diametrically opposed their philosophies and temperaments might be.
Overall, though, the multi-country trip should go fairly well for Trump because at the end of the day, other nations want to have good relations with the U. S., said Ian Bremmer, a political scientist and president of the analytical Eurasia Group in Washington. Because world leaders generally need Washington more than a U. S. president needs them, \u201cthat asymmetry makes it easier, \u201d he said.
Trump has said he does not like to travel, and since becoming president, his only overnight trips away from the White House have been to his own U. S. properties.
During the campaign, he went once to Scotland, to inaugurate one of his golf clubs, and then made what by most accounts was a highly tense trip to Mexico.
There, he met with Mexican President Enrique Pe\u00f1a Nieto and agreed, according to sources, not to publicly insist that Mexico would pay for the wall \u2014 then tweeted as he flew out of Mexico City that Mexico really would pay for the wall. In addition, he took charge of a short news conference at the Mexican equivalent of the White House, leaving a stunned and helpless Pe\u00f1a Nieto at his side as he called only on U. S. reporters.
Pe\u00f1a Nieto\u2019s approval rating plummeted in the wake of the trip, and relations between the two allied nations were set on a still-bumpy course..
Staff writer Noah Bierman contributed to this story from Washington.
tracy.wilkinson@latimes.com
For more on international affairs, follow @TracyKWilkinson on Twitter
michael.memoli@latimes.com
Twitter: mikememoli<\/p>\n

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