MILAN — Vice President JD Vance arrived in Milan together with his household Thursday, telling U.S. athletes competing within the Milan Cortina Winter Games that the competitors “is among the few issues that unites your entire nation.”
It is the primary cease for Vance on a visit combining diplomacy and sports activities. He’s main President Donald Trump’s delegation to the 2026 Winter Olympics and later stopping in Armenia and Azerbaijan in a present of help for a peace agreement brokered by the White House final yr.
Vance, who plans to observe the U.S. women’s hockey team tackle Czechia in a preliminary recreation on Thursday, advised athletes the journey is a spotlight of his time in workplace. “The entire nation — Democrat, Republican, impartial — we’re all rooting for you and we’re cheering for you,” Vance mentioned.
The weeklong journey could also be one in all only some worldwide journeys Vance makes this yr. Trump and his Cupboard members are taking a tighter concentrate on home points — and home journey — heading into the November midterm elections, White Home Chief of Employees Susie Wiles mentioned final month.
On the opening ceremony for the video games on Friday, the vp will lead a U.S. delegation that features his spouse, second girl Usha Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. Ambassador to Italy Tilman Fertitta. Former Olympic gold medalists may even be within the delegation, together with hockey participant sisters Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson and Monique Lamoureux-Morando; speedskater Apolo Ohno and determine skater Evan Lysacek.
Vance mentioned his spouse “is just not a sports activities fan” however “obsessively makes us watch the Olympics” each two years, citing that as proof of the way in which the competitors “actually brings the nation collectively. Everyone is rooting for you guys and all people’s cheering for you.”
Vance is following within 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 didn’t attend the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing as a result of the Biden administration didn’t ship any diplomatic officers as a boycott over human rights concerns.
After Italy, Vance plans to move to Armenia and Azerbaijan, the place Trump has tasked him with constructing on a deal aimed toward ending 4 a long time of battle between the 2 international locations.
The peace settlement boosts the place of the U.S. within the area at a time when Russia’s affect is declining. The 2 former Soviet republics, Armenia and Azerbaijan, agreed beneath the deal to reopen key transportation routes and bolster cooperation with america in power, know-how and the financial system. The deal additionally requires the creation of a significant transit hall dubbed the Trump Route for Worldwide Peace and Prosperity. It’s anticipated to attach Azerbaijan and its autonomous Nakhchivan exclave, that are separated by a 32-kilometer-wide (20-mile-wide) patch of Armenian territory.
Vance’s mission on the journey to additional the peace effort is much like an task he took on in October, when he traveled to Israel weeks after a ceasefire was negotiated in its conflict with Hamas in Gaza, reiterating the Trump administration’s dedication to the hassle.
Along with the Israel cease final yr, Vance made journeys to France, Germany, Greenland, India, and the U.Ok. He twice visited Italy, assembly Pope Francis earlier than his demise, and later, his successor Pope Leo XIV.
Whereas presidents focus their international journey on conferences with among the U.S.’s largest allies, vice presidents usually are known as on to make journeys somewhat off the crushed path. Biden, for instance, went to Mongolia in 2011, the place he tried some archery and was gifted a horse. In 2017, Pence visited Estonia, Georgia and Montenegro, the place he affirmed help for NATO, together with collaborating in symbolic diplomacy with the planting of an oak tree.
For vice presidents, international journeys are partly “a perform of what the president likes to do — and never love to do,” mentioned Marc Brief, who was chief of employees to Pence throughout Trump’s first time period.
Generally, journeys can embody sudden components, comparable to Pence’s 2018 journey to the East Asia Summit in Singapore that included a casual assembly with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Brief additionally recalled a 2019 journey to Poland the place Pence was known as to fill in for the president who stayed house to watch Hurricane Dorian. That journey concerned a gathering with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“The truth, clearly, is the president has quite a lot of different duties,” Brief mentioned, “So it’s usually essential that america be represented by the very best official obtainable. In lots of circumstances, that’s simply the vp.”
