Posted: 2:06 am EDT
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See what it’s like for folks working at a U.S. Embassy when POTUS comes to town. The White House’s West Wing Week took a short break from regular programming for a behind the scene look at U.S. Embassy Manila’s preparation for President Obama’s visit to the Philippines.
As of January 2016, President Obama has reportedly made 43 international trips to 52 different countries since his 2009 inauguration. 2016 is also shaping up to be a busy year for overseas presidential travel. President Obama will travel to Germany in April 2016 to join the United States delegation in their participation at the Hannover Messe, the world’s largest industrial fair. In May, he is scheduled to travel to Japan to attend the 42nd G7 summit in Shima. He is also scheduled to travel to Poland in July to attend the NATO summit meeting in Warsaw. September will find him traveling to China to attend the G-20 summit meeting in Hangzhou. He is also expected to attend the APEC summit meeting in Lima, Peru in November. There are also tentative trips reported for Laos, Vietnam, Cuba, Colombia, Argentina, among a host of other places.
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Just a light gloss on what all goes on in a POTUS visit. Nothing on speeches, toasts, seating, invitation lists, meetings both formal and informal, down time, spouses’ schedules and interests, convoys, contingency plans, flight clearances, military, secret service, all the entities beyond the normal Embassy ones that get involved. Visually it would help to show the five or six planning people in a room 2-3 months before and then the auditorium full of people a week before the POTUS visit … just to get an idea of the magnitude of the effort. Rich Appleton