WASHINGTON (AP) — Jill Biden departed Tuesday on her final solo foreign trip as first lady, a six-day, four-country jaunt through Italy, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar that wraps with her and President-elect Donald Trump joining other dignitaries in Paris to celebrate the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral.
Biden will focus throughout the trip on the issues she has championed as first lady, including support for military families, education, and research into cancer and women’s health, and will also highlight U.S. partnerships in these areas with the countries hosting her, according to her office.
She is the first Italian American to become first lady and has planned a side trip to her ancestral hometown of Gesso, the tiny Sicilian village where her father’s family hailed from.
Paris is the final stop to help celebrate the reopening of Notre Dame. The cathedral was painstakingly reconstructed after fire nearly destroyed it five years ago.
Trump, who was U.S. president at the time of the fire, announced Monday that he also will travel to the French capital to join other VIPs attending the high-security event.
Jill Biden has become somewhat of a world traveler as first lady. Tuesday’s trip is her 10th solo excursion outside the U.S. She also has accompanied her husband, President Joe Biden, on several of his foreign trips.
On her own, she has led the U.S. delegations to both the pandemic delayed Tokyo Olympics in 2021 as well as this year’s Games in Paris, traveled to Ukraine shortly after the invasion by Russia, and has visited Latin America and Africa. In October, she attended the inauguration of Mexico’s first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum.
Biden departed Tuesday evening after teaching her English and writing classes at Northern Virginia Community College. She arrives Wednesday at Naval Air Station Sigonella in Catania, Italy, to meet with personnel and deliver remarks as part of Joining Forces, her White House initiative to support military families. Her father, Donald Jacobs, was a Navy signalman during World War II.
The first lady then stops in Gesso, Italy, before continuing on to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, for a day’s worth of events on Thursday. The schedule includes a tour of Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi as part of the Biden Cancer Moonshot program, and participation in a conversation about the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research at the Milken Institute Middle East and Africa Summit.
Biden will also visit with Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak, chairwoman of the General Women’s Union and the Family Development Foundation, and president of the Supreme Council for Motherhood and Childhood, in Abu Dhabi.
On Friday in Doha, Qatar, the first lady will highlight the two countries’ interests in education and health with separate visits to the Qatar Foundation and Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar, respectively.
She’ll also be a guest at a dinner banquet hosted by Sheikha Moza bint Nasser to celebrate the royal family wedding of Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and Sheikha Fatima bin Nasser bin Hassan Al Thani at the Al-Wajba Palace in Doha.
Biden is the keynote speaker Saturday at the Doha Forum, where policy leaders discuss global challenges, before she travels to Paris for the Notre Dame reopening. She is scheduled to return to Washington on Sunday.