Yahoo Finance Here’s What Ivanka and Melania Trump Are Doing at the United Nations
It’s not just President Donald Trump’s debut at the United Nations -- it’s also his wife and daughter’s.
Both Ivanka and Melania Trump accompanied President Trump to the United Nations’ General Assembly this week. Although it was the President’s speech that dominated the headlines, both the First Daughter and First Lady have events of their own.
Ivanka Trump, the First Daughter and a Senior Adviser to the President, has begun a series of meetings related to her West Wing portfolio, according to a White House Official. On Monday, she met with India’s Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, where the two discussed female entrepreneurship and workforce development. The First Daughter will lead the U.S. delegation to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in India this November, which is a primary reason Swaraj requested the meeting, according to a White House official.
Just hours after her father delivered his speech before the General Assembly on Tuesday, Ivanka Trump participated in an event hosted by British Prime Minister Theresa May on the need to end modern slavery and human trafficking. She noted in her remarks that she was participating at May’s invitation, and highlighted the work she had been doing on this issue since her father took office. In May, the First Daughter held a bi-partisan round table with members of Congress on the need to combat human trafficking and met with a group of trafficking survivors when she accompanied the President on his trip to Rome.
“Human trafficking and forced labor are forms of modern slavery that know no boundaries, spilling across international borders, and impacting men, women, children, of all ages and all nationalities,” she said in her remarks. “We must take away the economic opportunity in these crimes. We must uphold the rule of law.”
Ivanka Trump’s other meetings at the UNGA include Peter Maurer, President of the International Committee for the Red Cross, and Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop; both of these are to discuss issues relating to female economic empowerment. She also has a coffee planned with the Netherland’s Queen Maxima, to continue the discussion the two started at the W20 summit in Germany about increasing access to financial services for women around the world. The White House said Bishop and Maurer had requested these meetings with Trump.
Kate Anderson Brower, a former White House reporter and the author of First Women: The Grace and Power of America’s Modern First Ladies, said that, based on her experience, she thinks these types of meetings between a White House adviser and foreign officials are slightly unusual, but so is Ivanka Trump’s role as a whole.
“The idea of a president’s daughter with a West Wing office and a portfolio is entirely unchartered territory so this is an example, in a public setting, of what that looks like,” she wrote in an e-mail to Fortune.
Melania Trump’s role is somewhat less high profile, and more traditional for a First Lady. She was in attendance during her husband’s speech Tuesday, and is hosting a diplomatic reception with him Tuesday evening, according to her spokeswoman. On Wednesday, she will deliver remarks at a luncheon she is hosting for the spouses of UN world leaders and committee heads, which Michelle Obama had done during her tenure as First Lady.
Her spokeswoman declined to provide details about the content of her speech.
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