Obama will make first presidential visit to Kenya in July


On Monday, the White House announced that President Obama will co-host a Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Kenya in July, his first trip to his father's homeland as president. It will be Obama's "fourth trip to sub-Saharan Africa and the most of any sitting U.S. president," note National Security Council staffers Grant Harris and Shannon Green, comparing the Kenya visit to "President Kennedy's historic visit to Ireland in 1963."
At The New York Times, Peter Baker plays up the silly number of Americans who say they believe that Obama himself was born in Kenya, rather than Hawaii. But he also adds the substantive diplomatic problem that Kenya's president has been under a legal and ethical cloud since ethnic violence after disputed 2007 elections left more than 1,200 dead and 600,000 displaced.
"Now, the case against the president, Uhuru Kenyatta, has been dropped, and the perennial talk about Mr. Obama's birth has faded in the United States," Baker concludes. "So Mr. Obama seems to have concluded that a Kenya trip is acceptable at home and abroad." Obama has visited Kenya twice before, as a young man — a visit chronicled in his 1995 memoir Dreams From My Father — and again as a U.S. senator in 2006.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
-
Judge nixes wiping medical debt from credit checks
Speed Read Medical debt can now be included in credit reports
-
Grijalva wins Democratic special primary for Arizona
Speed Read She will go up against Republican nominee Daniel Butierez to fill the US House seat her father held until his death earlier this year
-
US inflation jumps as Trump tariffs 'bite'
Speed Read Consumer prices are climbing and the inflation rate rose to its highest level in four months
-
SCOTUS greenlights mass DOE firings
Speed Read The Supreme Court will allow the Trump administration to further shrink the Education Department
-
Cuomo announces third-party run for NYC mayor
Speed Read He will go up against progressive Democratic powerhouse Zohran Mamdani and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams
-
Secret Service 'failures' on Trump shooting
Speed Read Two new reports detail security breakdowns that led to attempts on the president's life
-
Trump set to hit Canada with 35% tariffs
Speed Read The president accused Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney of failing to stop the cross-border flow of fentanyl
-
Mahmoud Khalil files $20M claim over ICE detention
Speed Read This is the 'first damages complaint' brought by an individual targeted by the Trump's administration's 'crackdown' on Gaza war protesters