WASHINGTON: 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\u2019s rival for avoiding the press, Vance said, \u201cI just wanted to check out my future plane.\u201d
\nIt\u2019s an aircraft he now knows well.
\nIn the opening months of Trump\u2019s term, Vice President Vance has traveled all over the globe \u2014 family in tow \u2014 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 US policy, \u201csoft power\u201d appearances to build goodwill and family time at tourist sites along the way.
\nDiplomacy before family and cultural sights
\nVance\u2019s 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\u2019s brief meeting with Pope Francis the day before the pontiff died.
\nIn his first big moment on the world stage in February, Vance pressed Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerica first\u201d message at an artificial intelligence summit in Paris and spoke of maintaining US 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\u2019s war against Ukraine.
\nIn 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 US needs to take control of the island away from Denmark.
\nThere\u2019s been dealmaking, too.
\nIn India last month, Vance announced after meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi that they had agreed on a negotiating framework for a US-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.
\nFamily time follows Vance\u2019s diplomatic work
\nVance 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.
\nThe 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.
\nBrad Blakeman, a former senior official in George W. Bush\u2019s administration who has provided planning advice to Vance\u2019s office for some of his foreign travel, said that, while some personal time is woven in, these are not vacations.
\n\u201cYou try and balance the policy with the culture aspect of the trip so that you\u2019re honoring the customs and culture of the places that you are visiting,\u201d he said. Visiting iconic cultural sites while abroad shows respect and builds rapport with host nations that can enhance diplomacy.
\nIt\u2019s also important to be mindful that the president and vice president travel at the public\u2019s expense, he said.
\n\u201cThat\u2019s the balancing act that always has to be done because of the stewardship of the taxpayers\u2019 money,\u201d he said.
\nJoel Goldstein, a law professor at Saint Louis University who specializes in the US vice presidency, said the journeys also could be intended to build Vance\u2019s foreign policy chops.
\n\u201cPart of foreign travel for a vice president is establishing a national security and diplomatic credential,\u201d he said, noting that it\u2019s particularly important for Vance.
\nAt age 40, Vance served just two years in the Senate before ascending to the office.
\nVance displays the habits of a millennial
\nVance is also the second-youngest person and the first of the millennial generation to hold the job.
\n\u201cGenerations\u201d 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.
\n\u201cThe 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,\u201d she said.
\nVance frequently switches gears on the road. Last week, he wedged in a quick beer with service members in Germany \u2014 and autographed the \u201ckegerator\u201d built by one airman \u2014 after days of wall-to-wall official and cultural activities throughout Italy and India.
\nSome of the Vances\u2019 activities have been unwelcome
\nUsha 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\u2019s tough talk of the US taking the territory away from a NATO ally. Instead, the vice president joined the trip, and their visit was limited to a US military base there.
\nOn 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 US dignitaries.
\nA 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.
\nIn India, the Taj Mahal, normally swarming with tourists, was also closed to visitors to accommodate the Vances, according to local media reports.
\nAmerican officials are often formally invited to make such cultural diversions, and it\u2019s not unusual for the US Secret Service, which provides protection for top US officials, to ask for the sites to be closed to the public for security reasons during presidential and vice presidential tours.
\nThe 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.
\nSuch trips have a long history
\nOther recent vice presidents also have taken family members along on trips. Presidents do, as well.
\nAs vice president, Democrat Joe Biden often took one of his older granddaughters on trips, a practice he continued as president. Presidents\u2019 children, including Malia and Sasha Obama and Chelsea Clinton, went along on some trips with their parents, too.
\nPractices 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.
\nUsha Vance said as much during the family visit to India, where her parents were born. She hadn\u2019t visited in decades, and her husband and children had never been there.
\nIn an interview with India\u2019s NDTV, she said she\u2019d been anxious to make the \u201ctrip of a lifetime\u201d with them.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s been something that I\u2019ve wanted to share with my new nuclear family,\u201d the US second lady said, adding that they knew Vance would have a chance to visit India as vice president. \u201cWe always knew that, when that opportunity arose, we would all come with him.\u201d
\n\u201cWe think of it as sort of a gateway, the first of many trips to come, I hope,\u201d she said.
\nSoft diplomacy is another goal
\nOne aim of vice presidential travel abroad is often soft diplomacy, or the building of favorable attitudes toward the US through imagery and symbolism.
\nWhen 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.
\nLikewise, 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 \u201cDo Running Mates Matter?\u201d
\n\u201cI wonder, with JD Vance, if it\u2019s an effort to soften his image,\u201d Devine said. \u201cHe\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: 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\u2019s rival for avoiding the press, Vance …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":80543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80529"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80544,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80529\/revisions\/80544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}