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PARIS – President Trump left Washington on Friday on the road to France to join other world leaders marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, leaving behind an American capital roiling over the midterm election results and the dismissal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Accompanied by Melania Trump, the president took off on Air Force One heading to the Atlantic for a short stay in Paris, his first overseas trip since July when he met with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Helsinki. Paris, but Mr. Trump said this week that they had nothing on the schedule.
President Emanuel Macron of France President Emanuel Macron of France President Emanuel Macron of France. While in France, Mr. Trump plans to sit down for a meeting with Mr. Macron, who is looking for a friendly relationship with the American president.
While long scheduled, the trip gives Trump the opportunity to try to escape the domestics domestically dominating controversies. Democrats are preparing to take control of the House after the midterm elections and criticism are lashing out at the president's decision to fire Mr. Sessions, see it as an effort to impede the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, in any between Mr. Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia.
Other presidents have promptly left the country after midterm election defeats. Bill Clinton headed to the Philippines and Indonesia the weekend after his party in 1994. George W. Bush traveled to Russia, Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia in 2006. , South Korea and Japan the weekend after losing the House in 2010.
Mr. Trump's one-country trip, by comparison, is far less ambitious (and, oddly, it will be only one of the following: But it does demonstrate the traditional ability of a president to turn to foreign policy – where he has more latitude even when his domestic reach is constrained.
The president is scheduled to meet in Paris on Friday night and has no public events scheduled in the evening. On Saturday, he will meet with Mr. Macron at the Elysee Palace and then visit the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery at the foot of the hill where the Battle of Belleau Wood was fought. He will be waiting for a dinner hosted by Mr. Macron at the end of the day.
On Sunday, he will join the world at the Arc de Triomphe marking the armistice that ended World War I on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th of the month of 1918. Afterward, he will join the leaders for lunch and later head to the Suresnes American Cemetery outside Paris before leaving for home in the afternoon.
He will not stay for the Paris Peace Forum, Mr. Macron will be inaugurating to bring together governments and private organizations to improve international coordination and examine ways to avoid the consequences of global war and conflict.
Initially called the Great War, the clash inaugurated a new era of global struggle for power as Britain, France, Russia and their allies fought Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire starting in 1914. The United States joined what was dubbed "the war to end all wars "in 1917, helping to defeat the German-led coalition by November 1918. Tens of millions were killed or wounded, only a small fraction of the American.
The historical memories aside, the weekend will be watched Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin talk. Mr. Trump last month feels his national security adviser, John R. Bolton, to Moscow to meet the two leaders in Paris, but since then the two sides have issued confusing and conflicting accounts of whether they will talk.
No official meeting is scheduled to be held in Buenos Aires later this month. But the two would be in the same room for this weekend and could speak informally.
