Vance to visit leaders of Italy, India

Vice President Vance will travel next week to Italy and India to meet with leaders there and visit cultural sites.

Vance will be joined by second lady Usha Vance and their children for the trip, which will begin Friday with a trip to Italy. The vice president will meet with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome, which will come on the heels of Meloni’s visit to the White House on Thursday.

Vice President Vance also will meet with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who is the Vatican secretary of state. The vice president converted to Catholicism in 2019.

The second family then will head to India, where the vice president will meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The trip includes stops in New Delhi, Jaipur and Agra. The Vance family will participate in “engagements and cultural sites,” the vice president’s office said.

Usha Vance is the first Hindu American to serve as second lady.

The visits to Italy and India come as the Trump administration has levied tariffs on both nations as part of a wider trade war. India and the European Union, which Italy is a member of, faced some of the steepest “reciprocal” tariffs announced by the Trump administration before the president ultimately paused those for 90 days.

This week’s trip will mark the third time Vance has traveled abroad as vice president, underscoring his prominent role in the Trump administration’s foreign policy. He traveled to Germany and France in February, where he admonished European leaders at a security conference.

He also visited Greenland last month as the Trump administration has expressed interest in taking control of the Danish territory, despite pushback from leaders in Greenland and Denmark.