The Claim

Conducted dozens of leader-level meetings with foreign nations, surpassing the totals of Biden and Obama during the same period of their respective presidencies.

The Claim, Unpacked

What is literally being asserted?

Two things: (1) the administration conducted “dozens” of leader-level meetings with foreign nations during its first year, and (2) this total surpassed the number of equivalent meetings conducted by the Biden and Obama administrations during their respective first years.

What is being implied but not asserted?

That meeting quantity is a meaningful measure of military strength or diplomatic effectiveness. That more meetings equals better foreign policy. That Biden and Obama were comparatively passive or disengaged. The placement of this claim under “FORGING A STRONGER, MODERNIZED MILITARY FORCE” implies that these meetings directly strengthened military capability — a causal link the claim does not establish but clearly intends.

What is conspicuously absent?

Any definition of what constitutes a “leader-level meeting” — the term could mean presidential bilateral summits, SecDef bilateral meetings, phone calls, multilateral pull-asides, or any combination. Any disclosure of the counting methodology. Any identification of the source for the Biden and Obama comparison numbers. Any acknowledgment that Biden’s first year (2021) was constrained by COVID-19 pandemic restrictions that limited in-person diplomacy. Any distinction between meetings initiated by the administration and meetings that occur as standard practice at multilateral forums (NATO ministerials, Shangri-La Dialogue, ASEAN, UNGA). Any assessment of what these meetings produced — agreements signed, alliances strengthened, deterrence improved. Any mention that Hegseth skipped the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in April 2025 (the first SecDef absence since its 2022 creation), skipped it again in June 2025, and did not attend the NATO defense ministers meeting in February 2026. Any mention that Hegseth brought his wife — who likely lacked a security clearance — to at least two meetings with foreign officials where sensitive information was discussed. Any mention that the Pentagon Inspector General found Hegseth violated Pentagon policies by sharing classified strike information via Signal with his wife and brother.

Evidence Assessment

Established Facts

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made ten foreign trips during his first year in office (January 2025 - January 2026). According to the Institute of New Europe’s tracking analysis, these comprised four trips to Europe, three to the Indo-Pacific, two to Latin America and the Caribbean, and one to the Middle East. The Middle East trip was solely accompanying Trump to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and UAE. One European trip was accompanying Trump to the NATO summit at The Hague. ¹

Hegseth held bilateral meetings at multiple multilateral forums throughout 2025. At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore (May 2025), he met bilaterally with defense ministers from multiple countries. At the ASEAN defense ministers’ meeting in Malaysia (October-November 2025), he met counterparts from Cambodia, Indonesia, India, Thailand, the Philippines, China, and others. He attended three NATO defense ministers’ meetings in Brussels (February, June, and October 2025). He held bilateral meetings in Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam during his October-November Asia tour. He hosted foreign defense ministers at the Pentagon in Washington. The Pentagon published readouts for bilateral meetings with countries including the UK, Sweden, Argentina, Australia, and the Baltic states. ²

Biden’s first year of in-person diplomacy was significantly constrained by COVID-19. Biden made only 6 international trips in 2021, compared to 12 in 2022. He did not welcome his first foreign leader to the White House until mid-April 2021, nearly three months into his presidency, due to pandemic restrictions. Obama, by contrast, welcomed his first foreign leader (UK PM Gordon Brown) in March 2009. Biden hosted 28 heads of government at the White House across his first two years combined. ³

Lloyd Austin made at least five foreign trips in his first year (2021), visiting approximately 12 countries. Austin’s first trip was to Japan and South Korea (March 2021, with Secretary Blinken), followed by India (March 2021), Singapore/Vietnam/Philippines (July 2021), Saudi Arabia/Qatar/Bahrain/Kuwait (September 2021), and Bahrain/UAE (November 2021). He attended the IISS Manama Dialogue and conducted numerous bilateral meetings on the margins of multilateral events. Austin made twelve trips to the Indo-Pacific region across his full four-year tenure and attended the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting Plus every year. ⁴

Hegseth was the first U.S. Defense Secretary to skip the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in person since its creation in 2022. At the April 11, 2025 meeting of 50 countries in Brussels, Hegseth was initially expected to skip entirely, then joined virtually. He became the first SecDef in the coalition’s 26 meetings not to lead it. He skipped again in June 2025. In February 2026, Hegseth did not attend the NATO defense ministers meeting, sending Under Secretary Elbridge Colby instead — a rare absence for a U.S. defense secretary. ⁵

The Pentagon Inspector General found Hegseth violated policies and risked troop safety by sharing classified information via Signal. In December 2025, the IG concluded that Hegseth relayed classified information about Yemen strike plans — including launch times for F-18s, MQ-9 drones, and Tomahawk missiles — to two Signal groups, one of which included his wife, brother, and attorney. The IG found the information had been marked classified when sent. Separately, Hegseth brought his wife Jennifer to at least two meetings with foreign military officials where sensitive information was discussed, including a March 6, 2025 meeting with UK Defence Secretary John Healey. Some foreign attendees did not know who she was. ⁶

Strong Inferences

The claim’s comparison to Biden and Obama is unverifiable because no standard methodology exists for counting “leader-level meetings.” The term “leader-level meetings” has no standard definition in diplomatic protocol. It could encompass presidential bilateral summits, SecDef bilateral meetings, phone calls, video conferences, multilateral pull-asides, or any combination. Neither the White House nor the Pentagon has published the dataset, counting methodology, or comparison figures underlying this claim. Without knowing what was counted and how, the “surpassing” comparison cannot be independently verified or falsified. ⁷

Comparing first-year meeting totals across administrations without controlling for COVID-19 is fundamentally misleading. Biden’s first year (2021) saw severe constraints on in-person diplomacy due to the pandemic. His first foreign leader visit to the White House was delayed until mid-April. His SecDef Austin made fewer foreign trips in 2021 than in subsequent years. Any raw numerical comparison that does not account for pandemic-era restrictions on international travel and in-person meetings is comparing fundamentally different operating environments. This is the denominator problem: the baseline conditions were not equivalent. ⁸

Meeting quantity is a poor proxy for diplomatic effectiveness or military strength. The claim is placed under “FORGING A STRONGER, MODERNIZED MILITARY FORCE,” implying that more meetings equal a stronger military. But the quality, substance, and outcomes of diplomatic engagement matter far more than volume. Austin held four bilateral meetings in a single day at the 2024 ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting Plus — routine for multilateral forums. Any defense secretary who attends the standard calendar of NATO ministerials, Shangri-La Dialogue, and ASEAN defense ministers’ meetings will accumulate “dozens” of bilateral meetings as a matter of course. The metric conflates routine multilateral participation with distinctive diplomatic achievement. ⁹

The administration’s selective engagement pattern undermines the quantity-as-quality argument. While claiming to surpass predecessors in meeting volume, Hegseth became the first SecDef to skip the Ukraine Defense Contact Group and later skipped NATO defense ministers in February 2026. The administration’s National Defense Strategy, released January 2026, deprioritized NATO and the Indo-Pacific in favor of the Western Hemisphere. The pattern suggests not more engagement but different engagement — prioritizing some relationships while allowing others, including the largest European security coalition since the Cold War, to atrophy. ¹⁰

What the Evidence Shows

The factual core of this claim — that the Trump administration conducted “dozens” of leader-level meetings in its first year — is almost certainly true in a trivial sense. Any administration that participates in the standard calendar of multilateral defense forums (three NATO ministerials, the Shangri-La Dialogue, ASEAN defense ministers, the UN General Assembly, bilateral visits in Washington) will easily accumulate dozens of leader-level meetings. This is standard operational tempo for a global superpower, not a distinctive achievement.

The comparison to Biden and Obama is where the claim collapses. First, the term “leader-level meetings” lacks any standard definition. Does it count phone calls? Video conferences? Pull-aside meetings at multilateral events? Presidential meetings, SecDef meetings, or both? The White House provides no methodology, no dataset, and no source for the comparison figures. This makes the claim unfalsifiable by design — a number that sounds impressive but cannot be checked.

Second, comparing to Biden’s first year without acknowledging COVID-19 is deeply misleading. Biden did not receive his first foreign leader at the White House until April 2021. Austin made fewer foreign trips in 2021 than he would in any subsequent year. The pandemic created an unprecedented constraint on in-person diplomacy that makes any raw numerical comparison meaningless. Even Obama’s first year saw fewer in-person meetings than subsequent years as his administration ramped up its diplomatic calendar.

Third — and most fundamentally — meeting quantity tells us nothing about military strength. The claim sits under “FORGING A STRONGER, MODERNIZED MILITARY FORCE,” implying that meeting volume translates to military capability. But what matters is what happened in those meetings. Item 175 found that the administration’s Indo-Pacific engagements produced mostly non-binding frameworks while imposing tariffs on every ally. Item 156 found that the NATO 5% spending pledge — a real achievement — contains a decade-long timeline, no enforcement mechanism, and significant creative accounting risks. Meanwhile, Hegseth became the first SecDef to skip the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, skipped NATO defense ministers in February 2026, shared classified strike information via Signal with his wife and brother, and brought his wife to sensitive foreign meetings without proper clearance — none of which suggests that meeting quantity is translating into effective defense diplomacy.

The Bottom Line

The claim that the administration “conducted dozens of leader-level meetings” is almost certainly true in a literal sense — so true, in fact, that it is unremarkable. Any administration that participates in standard multilateral defense forums will accumulate dozens of such meetings. The claim’s comparative dimension — “surpassing the totals of Biden and Obama” — is unverifiable because the White House provides no methodology, no data, and no definition of what constitutes a “leader-level meeting.” Comparing to Biden’s COVID-constrained first year without acknowledging the pandemic is particularly misleading.

More importantly, this claim reveals a category error at its core. It treats meeting quantity as a measure of military strength — counting the number of conversations rather than assessing what those conversations produced. The same administration that claims to surpass predecessors in meeting volume also became the first to skip the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, sent a substitute to NATO defense ministers, imposed tariffs on every major ally, and saw its defense secretary investigated by the Pentagon IG for sharing classified information via a consumer messaging app with family members. The number of meetings held is a metric that flatters without informing. It is the diplomatic equivalent of counting inputs rather than measuring outcomes — and the outcomes, as examined in items 156 and 175, are far more complicated than the headline number suggests.

Sources

Footnotes

1. Institute of New Europe, “Pete Hegseth’s first year in office — Diplomatic activity [MAP],” March 13, 2026. Ten foreign trips: four to Europe, three to Indo-Pacific, two to Latin America/Caribbean, one to Middle East. https://ine.org.pl/en/pete-hegseths-first-year-in-office-diplomatic-activity-map/ ↩

2. Pentagon readouts of Hegseth bilateral meetings at war.gov, 2025-2026. Bilateral meetings with Sweden (December 2025, GlobalSecurity.org mirror), Baltic states quadrilateral (July 2025), Argentina (July 2025), Australia (Singapore margins, May 2025). USNI News, “‘America First’ Does Not Mean ‘America Alone’: Hegseth Reaffirms U.S. Commitment to Indo-Pacific,” November 10, 2025. CSIS, “Hegseth’s Charm Offensive,” 2025. https://news.usni.org/2025/11/10/america-first-does-not-mean-america-alone-hegseth-reaffirms-u-s-commitment-to-indo-pacific; https://www.csis.org/blogs/latest-southeast-asia/latest-southeast-asia-hegseths-charm-offensive ↩

3. Pew Research Center, “What international trips has Biden made? 5 facts about presidential travel,” April 28, 2023. Biden: 6 trips in 2021, 18 total in first two years. Biden hosted 28 heads of government at the White House by end of 2022. First foreign leader visit to White House not until mid-April 2021 due to COVID restrictions. CNN, “Trump hosts four foreign leaders in two weeks,” February 14, 2025. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/28/5-facts-about-presidential-travel-abroad/; https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/14/politics/foreign-leaders-visiting-trump ↩

4. Defense One, “A day in the diplomatic life of America’s defense secretary,” December 4, 2024. Austin made twelve trips to the Indo-Pacific across four years; attended ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting Plus every year. Four bilateral meetings in a single day at November 2024 ASEAN event. CSIS, “Austin Accomplishes Two Missions in Southeast Asia,” 2021. Austin’s 2021 trips: Japan/South Korea (March), India (March), Singapore/Vietnam/Philippines (July), Saudi Arabia/Qatar/Bahrain/Kuwait (September), Bahrain/UAE (November). https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2024/12/day-diplomatic-life-americas-defense-secretary/401516/; https://www.csis.org/analysis/austin-accomplishes-two-missions-southeast-asia ↩

5. Defense News, “In first, Hegseth to skip multinational meeting on Ukraine support,” April 2, 2025. First SecDef absence from UDCG since its 2022 creation. Hegseth joined virtually April 11. Fortune, “After Hegseth snubs NATO, Europe makes the best of it,” February 12, 2026. Hegseth did not attend NATO defense ministers; Colby sent instead. “Rare for members of a U.S. administration to miss” NAC at ministerial level. Second consecutive absence after Rubio skipped December foreign ministers meeting. https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2025/04/02/in-first-hegseth-to-skip-multinational-meeting-on-ukraine-support/; https://fortune.com/2026/02/12/pete-hegseth-snubs-nato-europe-insists-its-fine/ ↩

6. NPR, “Pentagon watchdog finds Hegseth risked the safety of U.S. forces with use of Signal,” December 3, 2025. IG concluded information was marked classified; Hegseth violated Pentagon policies on personal phone use. ABC News, “Pentagon IG finds Hegseth could have endangered troops,” December 2025. Washington Examiner, “Pete Hegseth under fire for bringing wife to meetings with foreign military officials,” 2025. Wife attended March 6 meeting with UK Defence Secretary Healey; some attendees did not know who she was. Newsweek, “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Included Wife in Sensitive Meetings,” 2025. https://www.npr.org/2025/12/03/nx-s1-5630519/signalgate-pete-hegseth-inspector-general-report; https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense/3363274/pete-hegseth-wife-meetings-foreign-military-official/; https://www.newsweek.com/defense-secretary-pete-hegseth-included-wife-sensitive-meetings-report-2052491 ↩

7. No published methodology exists for the “leader-level meetings” comparison. The White House “365 Wins” document provides no footnote, citation, or data source for the claim. The Pentagon has not published a comparable dataset. Neither the State Department nor the National Security Council has released comparative meeting counts across administrations. The term “leader-level” has no standard definition in diplomatic protocol and could encompass meetings at the presidential, ministerial, or sub-ministerial level, as well as phone calls and video conferences. ↩

8. Pew Research Center, April 2023. Biden: 6 international trips in 2021 vs. 12 in 2022, reflecting COVID constraints. CNN, February 2025: Biden “didn’t welcome a foreign leader until mid-April” 2021 due to pandemic restrictions. Obama welcomed UK PM Gordon Brown in March 2009, his second month. COVID-19 created fundamentally non-comparable conditions for in-person diplomacy in 2021. ↩

9. Defense One, December 2024. Austin held four bilateral meetings in a single day at the November 2024 ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting Plus — routine for multilateral forums. FPRI, “Secretary Hegseth’s First Shangri-La Dialogue Speech,” May 2025: the Dialogue itself generates numerous bilateral pull-aside meetings. NATO schedules three ministerial-level meetings per year, each generating multiple bilateral engagements. https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2024/12/day-diplomatic-life-americas-defense-secretary/401516/; https://www.fpri.org/article/2025/05/secretary-hegseths-first-shangri-la-dialogue-speech-why-it-matters-and-what-to-watch-for/ ↩

10. Defense News, April 2025: Hegseth first to skip UDCG; Euronews, June 2025: skipped again. Fortune, February 2026: skipped NATO defense ministers. Breaking Defense, January 2026: NDS prioritizes Western Hemisphere. NPR, January 2026: NDS “tells allies to handle their own security.” https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2025/04/02/in-first-hegseth-to-skip-multinational-meeting-on-ukraine-support/; https://www.euronews.com/2025/06/04/us-defence-secretary-hegseth-to-skip-nato-led-meeting-on-ukraine-military-support; https://fortune.com/2026/02/12/pete-hegseth-snubs-nato-europe-insists-its-fine/; https://www.npr.org/2026/01/24/nx-s1-5687168/trump-administration-defense-strategy ↩