84 Countries Have Never Been Visited by a U.S. President — Almost Half Are in Africa
A total of 84 countries on Earth have never received a visit by a sitting U.S. President — while tiny islands and other remote nations are among them, some countries close to home have also never hosted a presidential visit, for example Belize, the Dominican Republic or Bolivia. And Suriname only made the list because the Air Force One ran out of gas (not a joke — read it here).
Yet, the most glaring realization of looking at a map of countries outside the focus of U.S. foreign policy is that 38 out of 84 countries without a presidential visit to-date are in Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa stands out especially. Liberia, a country founded by former American slaves, was the first in the region to receive a presidential visit. In 1943, President Roosevelt swung by for what the State Department Office of the Historian calls an “informal visit”. Jimmy Carter made the first state visit to Sub-Saharan Africa in 1978 when he called in on Lagos, Nigeria.
Then nothing happened for a long time. Until President Bill Clinton visited Botswana, Uganda, Ghana, Rwanda, Senegal and South Africa in 12-day whirlwind tour in 1998. In line with the in-transit theme, The New York Times labelled Clinton’s visit to “scenic” Botswana a “rest stop”. Human rights, foreign aid and environmental protection were on the trip’s agenda, but with the Lewinsky scandal starting to unfold at the time, newspapers devoted just as much attention to that in their reporting.
In the 21st century, presidents took more trips to Africa than ever before, but now like then (and especially under the Trump administration), Africa is not really a priority when it comes to U.S. foreign policy. While there have been six EU-Africa summits to-date, the U.S. has hosted no such events with African heads of state and there are no indications the current administration is planning a presidential visit to an African country soon (or ever).
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