Summary continued
Vance’s trip to the 2026 Winter Olympics is being presented as part diplomacy, part sports, and part preparation for a broader U.S. engagement in the South Caucasus. On Thursday, he arrived in Milan with his family and met with U.S. athletes competing in the Milan Cortina Winter Games, telling them the competition is “one of the few things that unites the entire country.” He then took his family to a hockey game.
The visit is also tied to Vance’s role in leading President Donald Trump’s delegation to the Games, with U.S. officials describing the stop as a high-profile early element of a trip that combines Olympics attendance with follow-on diplomatic travel. White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles said last month that the president and his Cabinet members are taking a tighter focus on domestic issues—and domestic travel—heading into the November midterms, making the weeklong itinerary among the few international trips planned for the year.
At the Games, Vance attended a preliminary-round matchup featuring the U.S. women’s hockey team at the Milano Rho Ice Hockey Arena, where the Americans beat the Czech Republic 5-1. Vance also told athletes that the trip is a highlight of his time in office, saying, “The whole country — Democrat, Republican, independent — we’re all rooting for you and we’re cheering for you,” and adding later that his wife “is not a sports fan” but “obsessively makes us watch the Olympics” every two years.
Vance’s remarks to athletes emphasized a broad political message aimed at uniting audiences around the Olympics rather than around partisan differences. In describing why the Games matter beyond the rink, he said they “really brings the country together,” saying “Everybody is rooting for you guys and everybody’s cheering for you.”
The delegation that Vance will lead at the opening ceremony on Friday includes his wife, second lady Usha Vance, as well as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. Ambassador to Italy Tilman Fertitta. The group also includes former Olympic gold medalists, including hockey player sisters Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson and Monique Lamoureux-Morando, speedskater Apolo Ohno, and figure skater Evan Lysacek.
The report placed Vance’s attendance in a broader pattern of vice presidents making trips linked to diplomacy and symbolism. It noted that former vice president Joe Biden attended the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in 2010, while Mike Pence traveled to Pyeongchang, Korea, in 2018. It also said former Vice President Kamala Harris did not attend the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, citing that the Biden administration did not send any diplomatic officials as a boycott over human rights concerns.
After the Olympics, Vance plans to head to Armenia and Azerbaijan, where Trump has tasked him with building on a deal aimed at ending roughly four decades of conflict between the two countries. U.S. officials have described the agreement as increasing U.S. standing in the region as Russia’s influence declines, and as providing for the reopening of key transportation routes as well as cooperation with the United States in areas including energy, technology and the economy.
The agreement also calls for creation of a major transit corridor described as the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, intended to connect Azerbaijan and its autonomous Nakhchivan exclave separated by a 32-kilometer-wide (20-mile-wide) stretch of Armenian territory. The report described Vance’s mission on the trip to further the peace effort as 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 and reiterated the Trump administration’s commitment to the effort.
The report also described the structure of vice presidential foreign travel and the way it can include unexpected stops. Marc Short, who was chief of staff to Pence during Trump’s first term, said foreign trips can reflect “what the president likes to do — and not like to do,” and that the vice president is sometimes sent because it is “often important that the United States be represented by the highest official available,” with the vice president filling that role.
Short said the reality of the president’s schedule means trips are sometimes off the beaten path, including earlier examples from Biden and Pence. He pointed to Pence’s 2018 trip that included an informal meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and a 2019 trip to Poland in which Pence met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after being called to fill in while the president stayed home to monitor Hurricane Dorian.
AP writers James Ellingworth and John Wawrow in Milan contributed to this report.