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US presidents rarely traveled internationally until Theodore Roosevelt visited Panama in 1906. The tradition of presidents staying in the US was so strong that Congress tried to pass a law transferring power to the vice president when Woodrow Wilson went to Europe in 1919.
President Donald Trump recently toured Asia, with an itinerary that included stops in Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. Presidential travel plans today are very different from those of the 1800s, when the idea of a US president making international visits was unknown. Critics in America feared such trips would lead to corruption, so presidents did not leave home. When Theodore Roosevelt supervised the construction of the Panama Canal in 1906, it was the first time a sitting US president made a trip to another country.
While the president is away…
The custom of presidents not to leave the United States while in office was so ingrained that President Ulysses S. Grant would have thought there was a law prohibiting presidential travel.
Republicans in Congress criticized Democrat Woodrow Wilson’s two-month trip to Europe at the end of World War I, saying Wilson was focusing too much on foreign affairs.
Congress even tried to pass a law that would transfer presidential power to the vice president when President Wilson was overseas, but it failed.
