Authors: Map – Jędrzej Błaszczak, Analysis – Jakub Graca, Data Collection – Paweł Gawryluk
During the first year of office, U.S. Secretary of defence Pete Hegseth made a full of 10 abroad trips: 4 to Europe, 3 to the Indo-Pacific States, twice in the Latin America and Caribbean region, and 1 to the mediate East. As part of the latter, he only accompanied Donald Trump in his visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United arabian Emirates; similarly, in 1 of 4 to Europe he went with Trump to the NATO summit in The Hague. According to unofficial information, Hegseth's planned visit to Israel was cancelled due to Trump's mediate East expedition taking place at the same time.
In addition, the Secretary of defence made representatives in Washington (mainly their counterparts, but not only theirs) from many allied and partner countries, while the remaining talks were conducted by telephone/electronic. Due to the mediocre information policy of the Trump administration, it is possible that any of the talks may not have been made public.
Although Hegseth's number of meetings and talks with Latin American representatives has not been made public, this region is in the light of the latest U.S. strategical papers a precedence for Washington. With respect to this area, the most crucial was the April visit to Panama (the U.S. is inactive working on securing their interests in the Panama Canal, among others, by eliminating the Hong Kong concern CH Hutchinson from there).
With respect to the Indo-Pacific direction, it is worth mentioning all 3 trips: the first in March 2025 to the American island of Guam, to the Philippines and Japan, the second in May to the prestigious yearly Shangri-La conference to Singapore (in the spheres where many bilateral and multilateral meetings took place with representatives of the countries of the region) and the 3rd in late October and November to Malaysia on the occasion of the gathering of the Defence Ministers of the ASEAN States (where, as in Singapore, a number of talks were held). He flew consecutive to Kuala Lumpur Hegseth from Japan, where he accompanied Trump in his bilateral visit, and after leaving Malaysia he went to Vietnam and South Korea (this was Hegseth's first gathering with his South Korean counterpart). In the context of the Indo-Pacific, the ministerial consultations held in Washington in December in 2+2 format with Australia and the gathering of the defence ministers of the AUKUS states deserve attention. There has been no 2+2 consultation with India since 2023.
It is besides impossible to overlook the 2 conversations between Hegseth and his counterpart from the People's Republic of China. The first 1 took place by telephone in September and was primarily acquainted and served as a common gathering of basic interests (based on a message by the American side). The second 1 took place on 31 October in Malaysia, the day after Trump's gathering with Xi Jinping in South Korea, and was more circumstantial – according to Hegseth, among others, the issue of creating military communication channels for deescalation in emergency situations (such channels already exist, but it is most likely about improving them).
In the context of the European episode, which, in the light of the fresh US National safety Strategy, is only ranked 3rd in the list of precedence areas, 3 NATO Defence Ministers meetings in Brussels (February, June and October 2025) and the Hague Alliance Summit in late June should be mentioned. During his February trip, Hegseth besides visited the American EUCOM and AFRICOM Commands in Germany and Poland, which inactive remains the only European country in which Hegseth made a bilateral visit.
In the mediate East, Hegseth made only 1 visit with Trump, during which, among others, a declaration of willingness was signed to acquisition about $142 billion of U.S. weapons by Saudi Arabia and was confirmed by the U.S. in 2024 to play the alleged "major defence partner" (Major defence Partner). Despite holding only 1 delegation to the mediate East, Hegseth repeatedly met with representatives of the states of the region during their visits to Washington, D.C., and consulted them by telephone. This is understandable given the fact that the US has conducted a number of military operations in the region in the last year (especially against Huti fighters in Yemen and Iran).
