Vice President JD Vance arrived in Milan with his family Thursday, telling U.S. athletes competing in the Milan Cortina Winter Games that the competition "is one of the few things that unites the entire country."
It's the first stop for Vance on a trip combining diplomacy and sports. He is leading President Donald Trump's delegation to the 2026 Winter Olympics and later stopping in Armenia and Azerbaijan in a show of support for a peace agreement brokered by the White House last year.
Vance, who plans to watch the U.S. women's hockey team take on Czechia in a preliminary game on Thursday, told athletes the trip is a highlight of his time in office. "The whole country — Democrat, Republican, independent — we're all rooting for you and we're cheering for you," Vance said.
The weeklong trip may be one of only a few international trips Vance makes this year. Trump and his Cabinet members are taking a tighter focus on domestic issues — and domestic travel — heading into the November midterm elections, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles said last month.
At the opening ceremony for the games on Friday, the vice president will lead a U.S. delegation that includes his wife, second lady Usha Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and U.S. Ambassador to Italy Tilman Fertitta. Former Olympic gold medalists will also be in the delegation, including hockey player sisters Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson and Monique Lamoureux-Morando; speedskater Apolo Ohno and figure skater Evan Lysacek.
Vance said his wife "is not a sports fan" but "obsessively makes us watch the Olympics" every two years, citing that as evidence of the way the competition "really brings the country together. Everybody is rooting for you guys and everybody's cheering for you."
Vance is following in the footsteps of former vice presidents Joe Biden who attended the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in 2010 and Mike Pence who traveled to Pyeongchang, Korea, in 2018. Former Vice President Kamala Harris did not attend the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing because the Biden administration did not send any diplomatic officials as a boycott over human rights concerns.
After Italy, Vance plans to head to Armenia and Azerbaijan, where Trump has tasked him with building on a deal aimed at ending four decades of conflict between the two countries.
The peace agreement boosts the position of the U.S. in the region at a time when Russia's influence is declining. The two former Soviet republics, Armenia and Azerbaijan, agreed under the deal to reopen key transportation routes and bolster cooperation with the United States in energy, technology and the economy.
The deal also calls for the creation of a major transit corridor dubbed the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity. It is expected to connect Azerbaijan and its autonomous Nakhchivan exclave, which are separated by a 32-kilometer-wide (20-mile-wide) patch of Armenian territory.
Vance's mission on the trip to further the peace effort is similar to an assignment he took on in October, when he traveled to Israel weeks after a ceasefire was negotiated in its war with Hamas in Gaza, reiterating the Trump administration's commitment to the effort.
In addition to the Israel stop last year, Vance made trips to France, Germany, Greenland, India, and the U.K. He twice visited Italy, meeting Pope Francis before his death, and later, his successor Pope Leo XIV.
While presidents focus their foreign travel on meetings with some of the U.S.'s biggest allies, vice presidents often are called on to make trips a little off the beaten path.
Biden, for example, went to Mongolia in 2011, where he tried some archery and was gifted a horse. In 2017, Pence visited Estonia, Georgia, and Montenegro, where he affirmed support for NATO, along with participating in symbolic diplomacy with the planting of an oak tree.
For vice presidents, foreign trips are partly "a function of what the president likes to do — and not like to do," said Marc Short, who was chief of staff to Pence during Trump's first term.
Sometimes, trips can include unexpected elements, such as Pence's 2018 trip to the East Asia Summit in Singapore that included an informal meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Short also recalled a 2019 trip to Poland where Pence was called to fill in for the president who stayed home to monitor Hurricane Dorian. That trip involved a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
"The reality, obviously, is the president has a lot of other responsibilities," Short said, "So it's often important that the United States be represented by the highest official available. In many cases, that's just the vice president."
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