Number of countries visited by U.S. presidents 1906-2021
During the 19th century, it was frowned upon for a sitting U.S. president to travel overseas and to liaise with foreign leaders or monarchs, as it was believed that foreign customs and attitudes to leadership could have a negative impact on the mindset of the president. However, as the U.S. emerged as an international superpower in the twentieth century, foreign trips by the president became integral to establishing and cementing the U.S.' influence across the globe. The first U.S. president to travel overseas while in office was Theodore Roosevelt, when observing the construction of the Panama Canal in 1906. Since then, the frequency of international trips and number of destinations has increased gradually, and has been facilitated in improvements in air transport and infrastructure. The number of countries visited by a sitting president peaked at the turn of the millennium when presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush visited 73 and 75 individual countries respectively. When put in the context of the time spent in office, the president who visited the most countries was George H. W. Bush, who visited 38 countries during his one term in office; this works out at 9.5 different countries per year (just slightly more than his son's annual average). During his first three years in office, President Donald Trump travelled to a similar number of countries as his recent predecessors, however the coronavirus pandemic meant that he remained in the U.S. for his final year in office, while doing international summit meetings (such as the G20) virtually. For the same reason, it is unlikely that President Biden will make any international travels until the pandemic is relatively under control.
