It starts on 20 May 2017 in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, and not—as is traditionally the case—in Canada or Mexico. The 45th president of the United States, Donald John Trump, is on his first trip abroad since his inauguration on 20 January. He is visiting the rulers of a country with which, in his own words, the US has a partnership based on ‘shared interests and values’. When Trump gives a speech on 21 May to Arabian political leaders, the king of Saudi Arabia—a country where religious intolerance, barbaric punishments, and suppression of women and foreign workers are the norm—is listening attentively in the front row. He notes with satisfaction that Trump is targeting one of Saudi Arabia's archenemies, Iran, by accusing it of ‘fuelling the fires of sectarian conflict and terror’. The king is also pleased with the ‘historic’ arms deal worth 110 billion dollars announced at the conclusion of the state visit. Trump is in turn very satisfied with the ‘tremendous deals’ and ‘homerun successes’ for companies such as the private equity giant Blackstone and oil company ExxonMobil.

Trump continues his first presidential trip abroad with a visit to Israel, has a conversation with the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and flies on to Rome on 23 May where he has an audience with the Pope. He then travels on to Brussels where, after ceremonial gatherings with the king and queen and the prime minister of Belgium, he causes irritation at the NATO summit. Trump calls his allies to account for their insufficient financial defence efforts and moreover refuses to voice his support for the obligation to come to each other's assistance embedded in Article 5 of the NATO Treaty. Leaving some NATO leaders in bewilderment, he returns to Italy where he meets some of the same faces again during the 43rd G7 summit in Sicily from 25 to 27 May. At this summit Trump refuses to embrace the climate agreement reached in Paris in 2015. All this leads Chancellor Angela Merkel to conclude that Europe must take its fate into its own hands. Trump is by that time already back in the US.