G20 Summit: Donald Trump to attend 8 meetings in 48 hours in Argentina

Buenos Aires, Nov 30: US President Donald Trump will be among the world leaders who will be in the Argentine capital for the two-day G20 summit kicking off on Friday, November 30, and in a span of 48 hours, he is set to appear in eight high-level meetings with foreign leaders.

The programme is so tight this time that a scheduled one-on-one meeting between Trump and Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been turned into a trilateral talk featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The current American president is known to not prefer travelling too much. Earlier this year, Vice President Mike Pence replaced Trump to represent the US in a summit of Latin American countries in Lima, Peru. More recently, Pence was on a tour of Asia to attend regional summits as Trump skipped.

The president, deemed to be one who prefers an inward-looking America, has cut short his foreign trips, especially in the second year of his presidency. He also cancelled a planned trip to Colombia earlier this month. He though had undertaken a big journey from Canada where he went to attend the G8 summit to Singapore to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in June.

Trump hates to travel

According to an Associated Press report, some White House officials - current and former - have confirmed Trump expressing frustration over travelling abroad and his scheduled were curtailed accordingly. It is also said that the American president likes to play the role of host to world leaders more than being a guest.

Trump has so far made eight trips abroad (excluding Argentina), four in each of the two years. However, while he visited 13 nations in the first year, the number was down to seven in the second.