United States presidential visits to North Africa
The countries of North Africa and their capitals
Nine presidents of the United States have made presidential visits to North Africa . The first trips by a sitting president to countries in North Africa were those of Franklin D. Roosevelt , and were an offshoot of Allied diplomatic interactions during World War II .
Of the five countries in the region, only Libya has not yet been visited by an American president.
Table of visits
President
Dates
Country or territory
Locations
Key details
Franklin D. Roosevelt
January 14–25, 1943
Morocco
Casablanca
Attended Casablanca Conference with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill .[1]
November 20–21, 1943
French Algeria
Oran
Disembarked.[1]
November 21–22, 1943
Tunisia
Tunis
Overnight stop.[1]
November 22–26, 1943
Egypt
Cairo
Attended First Cairo Conference with British Prime Minister Churchill and Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek .[1]
December 2–7, 1943
Attended Second Cairo Conference with British Prime Minister Churchill and Turkish President İsmet İnönü .[1]
December 7–9, 1943
Tunisia
Tunis
Conferred with General Dwight Eisenhower.[1]
February 13–15, 1945
Egypt
Great Bitter Lake , Suez Canal , Alexandria
Met with King Farouk , Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie , Saudi Arabian King Ibn Saud , and British Prime Minister Churchill.[1]
February 18, 1945
French Algeria
Algiers
Briefed U.S. Ambassadors to the United Kingdom, France, and Italy on the Yalta Conference .[1]
Dwight D. Eisenhower
December 17, 1959
Tunisia
Tunis
Met with President Habib Bourguiba .[2]
December 22, 1959
Morocco
Casablanca
Met with King Mohammed V .[2]
Richard M. Nixon
June 12–14, 1974
Egypt
Cairo, Alexandria
Met with President Anwar Sadat .[3]
Jimmy Carter
January 4, 1978
Aswan
Met with President Sadat and German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt .[4]
March 7–10, 1979
Cairo, Alexandria, Giza
State visit; met with President Sadat and addressed the People's Assembly .[4]
March 13, 1979
Cairo
Met with President Sadat.[4]
George H. W. Bush
November 22–23, 1990
Discussed the Persian Gulf crisis with President Hosni Mubarak .[5]
Bill Clinton
October 25–26, 1994
Met with President Mubarak and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat .[6]
March 13, 1996
Sharm el-Sheikh
Attended the Summit of the Peacemakers .[6]
July 25, 1999
Morocco
Rabat
Attended the funeral of King Hassan II ; met with Palestinian National Authority President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak .[6]
August 29, 2000
Egypt
Cairo
Briefed President Mubarak on the Middle East Peace Process.[6]
October 16–17, 2000
Sharm el-Sheikh
Attended Israeli-Palestinian Summit Meeting.[6]
George W. Bush
June 2–3, 2003
Attended "Red Sea Summit" with the leaders of Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, and with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas .[7]
January 16, 2008
Met with President Mubarak.[7]
May 17–18, 2008
Met with President Mubarak, King Abdullah II of Jordan , Palestinian National Authority President Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad , Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani . Addressed the World Economic Forum .[7]
Barack Obama
June 4, 2009
Cairo
Met with President Mubarak and delivered and address at Cairo University .[8]
Joe Biden
November 11, 2022
Sharm el-Sheikh
Met with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi . Attended the COP27 at Tonino Lamborghini International Convention Center.[9]
Visits by former presidents
Ulysses S. Grant visited Alexandria, Egypt, met with Khedive Isma'il Pasha , sailed up the Nile to tour the Valley of the Kings , and travelled by train down the length of the Suez Canal in 1878, during a post-presidency world tour.[10] [11]
Richard Nixon (without official State Department credentials) attended the funeral of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi , former Shah of Iran , in Cairo, July 29, 1980.[12]
Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter were among the dignitaries representing the United States at the funeral of Egyptian President Sadat in Cairo, October 10, 1981.[13]
See also
References
By place
Africa Americas Eurasia Oceania
By president