On November 30, Donald Trump will make his first trip to a Latin American country as president when he attends the G20 Leaders' Summit in Argentina. This comes after his first trip to Canada in June for the G7 Leaders' Summit in Quebec. Trump’s inaugural international journey was to Saudi Arabia, marking the first time a U.S. president selected a Middle Eastern country for his first foreign trip.
Though Trump planned to attend the Summit of the Americas in Lima, Peru, in April, he canceled, citing the crisis in Syria. Vice President Mike Pence attended in his place. Pence is also slated to attend Andres Manuel López Obrador’s inauguration as Mexico’s president on Trump’s behalf on December 1.
U.S. presidents' attention to their neighbors throughout the Western Hemisphere has been mixed. Since Theodore Roosevelt's presidency (1901–1909), every head of state but Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921) has visited at least one country in the Americas. As president-elect, Herbert Hoover (1929–1933) went on a good will tour to 10 Latin American countries, only to remain within the United States for the duration of his presidency. Franklin Roosevelt (1933–1945) made several fishing vacations to the Bahamas, then a British colony, as well as occasionally stopping in Trinidad—another former British colony—for layovers.
We look at U.S. presidents' trips throughout the hemisphere.