*Originally published in 2025 and preserved as part of our archive project.Get E-International Relations delivered to your inbox, free of charge. As you sign up, consider becoming a paid subscriber to support our work.

Just a few years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic appeared to transform the landscape of high-level leader diplomacy. As global lockdowns brought international travel to a near standstill, video conferencing platforms like Zoom quickly took center stage, replacing the traditional handshake with the digital square of a screen. Many observers predicted this shift would become permanent, citing the time-efficiency, lower costs, and reduced risks of digital diplomacy. Yet the return to in-person diplomacy has been swift and emphatic. According to global leader visit data collected by Moyer and his team, heads of state and government undertook 3,013 international trips in 2019. That number dropped to 1,027 in 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 lockdowns. By 2021, visits began to rebound (1,848 in total), nearly returning to pre-pandemic levels in 2022 (2,946), and exceeding them in 2023 with 3,521 trips. The upward trend continues in 2025, a year already marked by headline-grabbing diplomatic visits. The recent meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington sent shockwaves across the globe.

The media also closely followed speculation about where President Donald Trump would make his first overseas trip in his second term, a visit that ultimately materialized in Saudi Arabia. In an effort to secure the prestige of hosting this inaugural trip, the Saudis reportedly spent billions to stage the occasion. Alongside trillions of dollars in investment pledges from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar to the United States, Trump’s Gulf tour featured tectonic interactions with the potential to reshape regional dynamics. His meeting with Syria’s President Ahmed al-Shara—once a leader of the uprising that ousted Bashar al-Assad— in Saudi Arabia marked not only a stunning political turnabout but also a moment of symbolic recognition that may bolster the legitimacy of Syria’s new regime. Trump also encouraged al-Shara to normalize relations with Israel, a move that could lead to dramatic shifts in the region. In the European theatre, prior to Trump’s Gulf tour, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk traveled to war-torn Ukraine to facilitate a direct ceasefire dialogue between President Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The talks were scheduled to take place in Turkey. Zelensky flew to Ankara not only to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan but also in anticipation of a potential visit by Putin to Istanbul.........

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