Tried a thread for this in FQ but it got locked, so moving to P&E:
When a foreign head of state visits the White House, who initiates, approves and arranges it? Is it the USA who requests and invites the foreign leader, or does the foreign nation ask for it? How much say does the U.S. president himself have?
There are some pretty unexpected state visits (such as when the Malian president visited during Reagan’s term, and Mali didn’t seem to rank particularly high on the U.S. list of allies or trading partners.) There also seems to be no particular logic, reason or common thread running through the list of foreign leaders who are invited to the White House and/or given a state dinner.
Does a new U.S. president get into the White House specifically thinking, “Okay, I want to invite the leaders of Israel, Chile, Canada, UK, France, South Africa, Sri Lanka, India, Vietnam and Poland?”
Formally, the invitation comes from the host; the visitor can’t just announce “I’m coming!”
But these visits always happen by agreement, and are always preceded by discussions.
Either side in the discussions might be the first to suggest a visit to the US, but my guess is that a visit to the White House specifically would first be suggested by the US side. But if a foreign head of state is visiting the US — or, certainly, visiting Washington — a meeting with the President might be an expected courtesy, so the White House might feel there would need to a specific reason for not extending an invitation.
Heads of government can be different from heads of state, and it might be less diplomatically problematic for a head of government to visit Washington and not meet the President but, still, extending an invitation to the White House is something that I think would always be at least considered.
Given that in many countries, the Head of Government is the actual political power over the Head of State (eg UK, Canada), then this would be unlikely.
No, I don’t think so. In those countries the head of state is seen as embodying the state — his sole job is representing the state. He tends not to travel very much but, when he does, it’s a big deal, and if you don’t invite him to the White House that’s a very pointed message to the state he represents. The head of government travels much more, for a variety of official and working purposes — it might be to promote trade, to solicit investment, to foster links with expatriate/diaspora communities, to attend meetings of international bodies that happen to take place in the US, etc. A prime minister might visit the US several times during his term of office, for a variety of purposes, and it wouldn’t necessarily suit the White House, or him, if there was an expectation of a White House visit every time.