Just as he did after President Donald Trump’s trip to Europe, former President Barack Obama will make a tour of Asia, weeks after Trump returned from his first official state visit abroad to Japan and China.
The “shadow president,” apparently concerned that his successor will somehow make the results of Obama-era foreign policy worse, will visit China’s president and make an extra stop in India, potentially as a way of countering any Trump-related damage there (First Daughter Ivanka is in India this week promoting educational initiatives for girls).
Per The Hill, Obama is undertaking the trip as part of his “Obama Foundation kickoff tour,” and he’ll spend a few days in Shanghai where he’ll meet with President Xi Jinping before jetting to New Dehli and then to Paris, where he’ll meet with French officials.
The trip is probably not a coincidence. Shortly after Donald Trump made his first trip abroad as president, visiting Italy and France as well as several other nations, Obama just happened to schedule follow up trips where he visited many of the same nations and dined privately with leaders who’d spoken to Trump just days before.
Now, after Trump’s objectively successful trip to Asia, Obama has scheduled his own, and will visit China, where Trump and his family were well received and where the administration was able to smooth over several economic issues, and to India, where Trump’s daughter is making inroads with the populist government.
Although the former president promised to stay out of the limelight, he’s been deeply involved in policy issues designed to counter Donald Trump’s White House initiatives.