ӣ����Ƶ

When it comes to presidential travel, though, pace in the opening months of his second term is comparable to .

At his six-month mark in office through Saturday, Trump made 49 trips to 14 states and seven foreign countries, with a heavy focus on weekend golf trips and sporting events.

That’s not far off from Biden, who made 45 trips to 17 states and three foreign countries in his first six months in 2021, which overlapped with the COVID-19 pandemic. The Democrat made lots of weekend trips home to Delaware, where he went to church and usually did not golf. He also had more political and official trips than his Republican successor.

Trump’s second-term travel is also less prolific than his first so far, at least in terms of visiting different parts of the United States. In 2017, he made 48 trips to 21 states and eight foreign countries between Jan. 20 and July 20.

The White House said Trump is most effective in the Oval Office, working the phones, signing executive orders and meeting with foreign leaders and U.S. elected officials.

It says as of Saturday, Trump met with 25 foreign leaders at the White House, including multiple visits by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, and signed 165 executive orders while holding six Cabinet meetings — totals that far outpace Biden’s.

White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said Trump’s “travel reflects his America First agenda — he is meeting the American people where they are and representing their best interests.”

A look at where Trump went so far:

Golf and sporting events

When Trump hits the road, it’s most often to his properties for weekend trips built around golf in Palm Beach, Florida; Bedminster, New Jersey; or Sterling, Virginia, near Washington’s Dulles International Airport and close enough to motorcade from the White House.

The president logged 14 Florida trips, 13 to Virginia and eight to New Jersey. After summer arrived, he favored Bedminster or day trips to Sterling over steamy Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

Biden headed to his home in Wilmington, Delaware, many weekends early in his term. He sometimes went to a golf club, but attended Mass nearly every weekend.

Biden also traveled often to showcase policy achievements or to promote his initiatives, such as to Smith Flooring in Chester, Pennsylvania, a small business he described as benefiting from the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package.

Much of Trump’s non-golf domestic travel was built around sporting events. The president in New Orleans and to Florida for the . He attended UFC fights and the and the in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Political rallies, commencements

Trump has held only three major political rallies since returning to the White House.

He marked in suburban Detroit, went to Pittsburgh an agreement between U.S. Steel and Japan’s Nippon Steel and to Des Moines, Iowa, to . The president gave an at a Las Vegas casino during his second term’s opening weekend, and was in to Oxon Hill, Maryland, just outside Washington, to in February.

In addition to policy-focused travel, Biden did more early political trips. He participated in a CNN town hall in Wisconsin, marked the 11th anniversary of the Obama administration’s signature health care law in Columbus, Ohio, and spotlighted his first 100 days in office by addressing a socially distanced, drive-in rally in Atlanta.

Trump gave more commencement addresses, speaking at the and the . in Connecticut in his opening months of his term, when COVID-19 limited many such ceremonies.

One area where Trump outpaced Biden is on travel overseas. He for Pope Francis’ funeral and had a through Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, before going to Canada for the meeting of the leading industrialized nations and a .

Biden did not travel overseas in 2021 until the , when he went to the United Kingdom, Belgium and Switzerland, when the pandemic still raged.

Natural disaster sites

Trump’s second term started out with , both hit by natural disasters that occurred while Biden was president. Trump also visited Texas after .

But Trump did not tour parts of Missouri and Kentucky that were ravaged by tornadoes. He did not travel to areas hit by strong storms that sparked deadly flooding from other parts of Texas and Oklahoma to Indiana and Pennsylvania. He did not see the widespread aftermath of spring tornadoes, including in Mississippi and Arkansas.

Biden made a February 2021 trip to tour . He did not travel to all natural disaster sites during his first six months, either, but after a building collapse in Surfside killed 98 people.

Places Trump pledged to go

When became the during Trump’s second term in early February, the president proclaimed, “I love Israel. I will visit there. And I’ll visit Gaza.” His Middle East swing in May omitted both places.

Trump also that his government-slashing guru would be checking out Fort Knox in Kentucky to ensure that U.S. gold reserves were still there, and the president said he might join him. With Musk having and engaging in a , that now seems highly unlikely.

The president said recently he would like to visit Africa “at some point.” He was less committal about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s invitation to visit a September summit of countries known as the Quad, made up of the U.S., India, Japan and Australia.

Trump heads to Scotland this week and will visit two areas where he has golf properties. He will be in England for an official visit in the fall. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, at the , presented Trump with a letter from King Charles inviting the president to his country for an .

“This has never happened before,” Starmer said. Trump accepted the invitation right then.