United States presidential visits to North Africa

Eight Presidents of the United States have made presidential visits to North Africa. The first trips by a sitting president to countries in North Africa were those of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and were an offshoot of Allied diplomatic interactions during World War II. Of the five countries in the region, only Libya has not yet been visited by an American president.

The countries of North Africa and their capitals

Table of visits
President Dates Country or territory Locations Key details
Franklin D. Roosevelt January 14–25, 1943  Morocco Casablanca Attended Casablanca Conference with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.[1]
November 20–21, 1943 French Algeria Oran Disembarked.[1]
November 21–22, 1943  Tunisia Tunis Overnight stop.[1]
November 22–26, 1943  Egypt Cairo Attended First Cairo Conference with British Prime Minister Churchill and Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek.[1]
December 2–7, 1943 Attended Second Cairo Conference with British Prime Minister Churchill and Turkish President İsmet İnönü.[1]
December 7–9, 1943  Tunisia Tunis Conferred with General Dwight Eisenhower.[1]
February 13–15, 1945  Egypt Great Bitter Lake, Suez Canal, Alexandria Met with King Farouk, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, Saudi Arabian King Ibn Saud, and British Prime Minister Churchill.[1]
February 18, 1945 French Algeria Algiers Briefed U.S. Ambassadors to the United Kingdom, France, and Italy on the Yalta Conference.[1]
Dwight D. Eisenhower December 17, 1959  Tunisia Tunis Met with President Habib Bourguiba.[2]
December 22, 1959  Morocco Casablanca Met with King Mohammed V.[2]
Richard M. Nixon June 12–14, 1974  Egypt Cairo, Alexandria Met with President Anwar Sadat.[3]
Jimmy Carter January 4, 1978 Aswan Met with President Sadat and German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.[4]
March 7–10, 1979 Cairo, Alexandria, Giza State visit; met with President Sadat and addressed the People's Assembly.[4]
March 13, 1979 Cairo Met with President Sadat.[4]
George H. W. Bush November 22–23, 1990 Discussed the Persian Gulf crisis with President Hosni Mubarak.[5]
Bill Clinton October 25–26, 1994 Met with President Mubarak and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat.[6]
March 13, 1996 Sharm el-Sheikh Attended the Summit of the Peacemakers.[6]
July 25, 1999  Morocco Rabat Attended the funeral of King Hassan II; met with Palestinian National Authority President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.[6]
August 29, 2000  Egypt Cairo Briefed President Mubarak on the Middle East Peace Process.[6]
October 16–17, 2000 Sharm el-Sheikh Attended Israeli-Palestinian Summit Meeting.[6]
George W. Bush June 2–3, 2003 Attended "Red Sea Summit" with the leaders of Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, and with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas.[7]
January 16, 2008 Met with President Mubarak.[7]
May 17–18, 2008 Met with President Mubarak, King Abdullah II of Jordan, Palestinian National Authority President Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani. Addressed the World Economic Forum.[7]
Barack Obama June 4, 2009 Cairo Met with President Mubarak and delivered and address at Cairo University.[8]

Visits by former presidents
  1. Ulysses S. Grant visited Alexandria, Egypt, met with Khedive Isma'il Pasha, sailed up the Nile to tour the Valley of the Kings, and travelled by train down the length of the Suez Canal in 1878, during a post-presidency world tour.[9][10]
  2. Richard Nixon (without official State Department credentials) attended the funeral of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, former Shah of Iran, in Cairo, March 8, 1980.[11]
  3. Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter were among the dignitaries representing the United States at the funeral of Egyptian President Sadat in Cairo, October 10, 1981.[12]

See also

References
  1. "Travels of President Franklin D. Roosevelt". U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian.
  2. "Travels of President Dwight D. Eisenhower". U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian.
  3. "Travels of President Richard M. Nixon". U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian.
  4. "Travels of President Jimmy Carter". U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian.
  5. "Travels of President George H. W. Bush". U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian.
  6. "Travels of President William J. Clinton". U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian.
  7. "Travels of President George W. Bush". U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian.
  8. "Travels of President Barack Obama". U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian.
  9. Hindley, Meredith (May–June 2014). "The Odyssey of Ulysses S. Grant". Humanities. 35 (3).
  10. McFeely, William S. (1981). Grant: A Biography. Norton. p. 472. ISBN 0-393-01372-3.
  11. Ambrose, Stephen E. (1991). Nixon: Ruin and Recovery 1973–1990. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 533. ISBN 978-0-671-69188-2.
  12. "Officials From Around the World Attending Sadat's Funeral". The New York Times. APAP. October 10, 1981.
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