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As mayor of New York City, Eric Adams has made one thing abundantly clear: He loves to travel abroad — optics, an abandoned indictment and propriety be damned.
In his first three years in office, he visited Qatar (for the 2022 World Cup), Greece (to discuss antisemitism), Italy (to meet the Pope), Israel (to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu), and Mexico, Ecuador and Colombia (to urge would-be migrants not to come to New York City). Earlier this year, he traveled to the Dominican Republic to show solidarity after a deadly nightclub collapse.
But in the waning weeks of Mr. Adams’s administration, the pace of his travel is picking up and the city is footing much of the bill.
Mr. Adams has strenuously defended his mayoral wanderlust, waving off periodic questions about whether it was appropriate to be leaving New York City so frequently, especially after he was indicted on corruption charges that focused, in part, on improper foreign travel.
“I was a little boy that had a dream of traveling the globe,” he said in December 2023. “And I’m living out that dream.”
With the indictment now dismissed and the end of his single term fast approaching, Mr. Adams has taken his globe-trotting to new heights. In early October, the mayor flew to Albania for a four-day trip that his aides said was designed to stoke business and tourism. On Friday, he returned to Israel for a four-day trip to meet with business leaders and politicians, including Mr. Netanyahu.
