WASHINGTON — With his visit to Denmark to pitch Chicago as the site for the 2016 Summer Olympics, President Barack Obama has now visited more countries in his first year in office than any other president did.
His one-day trek last week to Denmark made it the 16th country Obama has visited since taking office Jan. 20.
That pushed him into the top spot as the country’s top globetrotting leader in his freshman year, passing the previous record holders: George H.W. Bush, who hit 15 countries in the year after he took office in 1989, and Gerald Ford, who also jetted off to 15 nations after taking office midway through 1974.
Obama will add more before his first-year anniversary. He’ll visit China, Japan, Singapore and South Korea next month.
The trips, whose tab is picked up by taxpayers, are expensive. When the president uses the familiar blue-and-white reconfigured 747 as Air Force One, it costs $100,219 an hour to operate. Also, there are cargo planes, used to transport armored limousines, helicopters and other equipment, as well as staff and Secret Service.
