Vice President JD Vance is departing for a week-long trip across Italy and India on Friday, just the latest in a string of diplomatic deployments President Donald Trump has assigned to his second in command.
According to the White House, the vice president and second lady Usha Vance will meet with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, along with Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, in Rome and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi.
One day earlier, Meloni met with Trump in the White House for a bilateral meeting focused on trade. The Vances will specifically “discuss shared economic and geopolitical priorities with leaders in each country,” the vice president’s office said of his trips to Italy and India.
The assignment comes at a perilous moment in U.S. diplomacy. Both countries are facing heavy new tariff penalties, should they fail to negotiate trade deals with the Trump administration by the summer. The president announced a 90-day pause of his “Liberation Day” tariffs earlier this month, lowering the effective rates for the European Union and India from 20% and 26%, respectively, to 10% while negotiations take place.
The trip also reflects the ways in which Vance, considered a possible successor to Trump in 2028, is rounding out his foreign policy portfolio.
Last month, Vance traveled to Greenland to speak to American military personnel as the president continued to make the case for annexing Danish territory. And in February, Trump sent Vance to Paris and then the Munich Security Conference, where he pressed European allies to increase their NATO defense contributions and take a more prominent role in policing the continent.
Ryan Walker, executive vice president of Heritage Action for America, told the Washington Examiner that Vance’s ability to vocalize the “root” of Trump’s “America First” foreign policy has made him a top “confidant” in crafting how the administration engages different foreign governments.
“Having someone like that in the administration is almost like a superpower, being able to communicate, boil it down to the root of what those policies are derived from, and based on what they’re trying to solve,” Walker said of Vance. “JD Vance is the best one in the administration, in my view, at doing that and articulating the vision and the future for the American people, and, frankly, I think that the America First agenda and movement is going to need someone like JD in the future.”
Still, Vance’s foreign relations input has produced a handful of hiccups. His remarks in Munich, and specifically accusations of free speech “backsliding” on the continent, were received icily by European allies.
His recent comment that the United States is borrowing from “Chinese peasants” has apparently become an impediment to trade talks as well, with China asking that members of Trump’s Cabinet remain respectful, according to Bloomberg.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian had called the remarks “astonishing and lamentable” last week.
Three veteran Republican operatives with ties to the White House suggested to the Washington Examiner that Vance is clearly being used as an enforcer abroad. The president has hosted a series of world leaders at the White House since January, but is not expected to make his first foreign trip, to Saudi Arabia, until May.
“It’s a great ‘one-two’ punch,” one former Trump administration official said. “President Trump is trying to shake up America’s relationships with allies and enemies alike. But he’s also dealing with a ton at home, limiting his ability to travel and engage leaders on their own turf. That’s where the vice president comes in.”
A second longtime Republican operative suggested that Vance’s “happy warrior” mentality keeps foreign leaders “on their toes.”
“These other countries are used to getting the bad cop routine from the Trump administration, so I think the vice president’s ability to effectively vocalize the mechanics of President Trump’s policies, and to do it with a smile, is invaluable,” that person continued. “It’s a tool that the president really didn’t have in his tool kit the last time around.”
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Ultimately, Walker thinks Vance’s deployment as a top Trump messenger is helping to build the “leverage” to accomplish the president’s foreign policy goals.
“I think our view is that something has to change, dynamics need to change, relationships need to change,” he explained. “Donald Trump, more than any other person in recent memory, at least in my view, understands leverage, and leverage is so important in developing trade relationships, developing military relationships, developing overall foreign policy relationships with other countries.”