Authors: Map – Jędrzej Błaszczak, Analysis – Jakub Graca, Data collection – Ksawery Stawiński, Translation – Dominik Wereszko
In the first year of his second term, Donald Trump made eight foreign trips, including four to Europe, two to the Middle East, one to Canada, and one to the Indo-Pacific region.
A large portion of the meetings held by Trump during this time took place on American soil – primarily in Washington (dozens of conversations), but also at Mar-a-Lago in Florida (e.g., with Robert Fico and once with Benjamin Netanyahu), and in one case in Alaska (with Vladimir Putin). The leader who visited Trump the most times was Netanyahu (six), followed by Volodymyr Zelenskyy (four) in second place.
The aforementioned trips and meetings, as well as the frequency of phone calls with individual leaders, do not necessarily reflect the priorities expressed in the American National Security Strategy from late 2025, where the Western Hemisphere is in first place, Asia (understood as the Indo-Pacific) in second, Europe in third, followed by the Middle East, and finally Africa. For example, Trump never once met with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, and he only saw Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva fleetingly on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in October. He spoke in person several times with Mark Carney (largely due to Canada’s membership in the G7 and NATO, although Carney also visited the White House twice) and with the ideologically close Javier Milei (US-Argentina relations tightened under Trump). The Summit of the Americas scheduled for December 2025 in the Dominican Republic, in which the US president might have participated, was postponed to the following year. Marco Rubio is primarily responsible for diplomacy in the Latin America and Caribbean region on Trump’s behalf, for which he is predisposed by, among other things, his background and knowledge of the Spanish language.
In the Asian segment, Trump met with his counterparts from all major allied and partner countries: Japan (both with the now-former Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in Washington and his successor Sanae Takaichi, as well as with Emperor Naruhito during his visit to Tokyo), South Korea (only at the end of October during a visit to Gyeongju, as the situation in Korea had been unstable for many months following the removal of the previous president from power), India, Australia, the Philippines, and ASEAN countries. The first meeting with Xi Jinping also took place at the end of October in Busan, South Korea, and two more meetings of the US and Chinese leaders are planned for 2026.
In the European segment, Trump was very active in his first year, mainly on three levels. The first of these was the negotiation of a new trade agreement between the US and the European Union, which was signed in July by Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at Trump’s estate in Scotland. The second area of activity was the so-far ineffective attempts to end the war in Ukraine; in this area, only a few conversations took place during Trump’s personal meetings in Europe, and most of them occurred either during visits by European leaders to Washington or remotely (only the meeting with Putin took place unexpectedly in Alaska). The third area was relations within NATO, where the main topic was the increase in defense spending by all allied countries, announced during the Alliance summit in The Hague in June. The only bilateral visit made by Trump to Europe was a September state visit to the United Kingdom, the main theme of which was a meeting with King Charles III. Meanwhile, the only previously unplanned visit was Trump’s participation in the funeral of Pope Francis I in April (to date, Trump has neither met nor even spoken by phone with the new, US-born Pope Leo XIV).
Trump was exceptionally active, almost disproportionately so in relation to the US priority list, in the Middle Eastern segment, primarily in two areas. The first concerned security: during the first year, American armed forces undertook a series of interventions in the region aimed at deterring Iran and combating its influence throughout the Middle East (the most important intervention was the bombing of Iranian nuclear installations in June). The 47th President of the US also brought about the end of the armed conflict in the Gaza Strip by signing an agreement implementing a so-called “peace plan” for Gaza in October in Sharm el-Sheikh, in the presence of dozens of leaders (mainly from European and Middle Eastern countries). The second area of activity in the Middle Eastern theater was the development of relations with selected Arab states – during a visit to the region in May, Trump visited Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, where a series of contracts and declarations of cooperation on selected topics (technology, weaponry, or the sale of Boeing aircraft) were signed. The value of these contracts, if realized, could range from hundreds of billions to even several trillion dollars.
It is also worth mentioning the less obvious directions of diplomacy. First, Trump was involved in mediation between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and although his actual role in bringing about the still-unimplemented peace agreement is a subject of dispute, it was nonetheless formally signed in Washington by the presidents of both interested countries in Trump’s presence. Second, in May at the White House, Trump hosted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, whom he publicly humiliated by showing him recordings and photos allegedly testifying to the persecution of the white population in South Africa, for which there is no conclusive evidence. Third, in August at the White House, Trump organized a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, during which a trilateral declaration of intent to continue efforts to negotiate a full peace agreement between Baku and Yerevan was signed. Fourth, a summit in the C5+1 format took place in November in Washington, involving the five Central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan) and the United States. As a result of the meeting, a series of documents were signed, the significance of which is currently difficult to assess, especially since these countries still remain on the margins of global diplomatic efforts for the US.
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