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Ivanka Trump is attending the United Nations General Assembly
She will go to meetings of her own related to her White House portfolio
Ivanka Trump is back in her native New York City and stepping out on her own for meetings at the United Nations General Assembly this week.
Joining her father at UNGA, the first daughter and senior adviser to the President will privately attend meetings of her own, a source familiar with the meetings told CNN.
Trump has faced criticism over her White House role: She’s been physically absent for some of her father’s most high-profile, controversial decisions – as well as failed to cajole him into siding with her on issues such as climate change – leading some to question her effectiveness as an adviser.
On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Trump is expected to attend meetings with Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, International Committee for the Red Cross president Peter Maurer, and Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, and have coffee with Queen Máxima of the Netherlands.
Each meeting pertains to topics within Trump’s West Wing portfolio, which includes work on paid family leave, a childcare tax credit, workforce development, ending human trafficking and promoting education for science technology, engineering and math, among other initiatives.
Foreign Minister Swaraj requested the meeting with Trump ahead of her upcoming travel to India. She will lead the US delegation to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in November. The two are expected to discuss the US and India’s shared interests in entrepreneurship, particularly as it pertains to women’s participation, workforce development and skills training.
Women’s economic empowerment is also on the agenda for her meetings with Maurer and Foreign Minister Bishop.
Queen Máxima and Trump will have coffee and follow up on their participation and meeting at the Women 20 Summit in Berlin in April, where German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced the creation of a World Bank facility aimed at women’s economic empowerment. Trump formally rolled out the facility at a July event with World Bank President Jim Yong Kim at the Group of 20 summit, also in Berlin.
Trump and the Queen will continue the discussions around advocating for women’s financial inclusion globally, per the source.
Trump counts the World Bank fund as one of her key accomplishments during her time in Washington.
“I said to (husband Jared Kushner) after the World Bank Fund was announced, ‘Man, if I go home today having just helped create that, the largest facility ever launched to provide capital and mentorship to women entrepreneurs in the developing world, that’s amazing,’ ” Ivanka Trump told the Financial Times in a recent interview.
It’s unclear how much of an influence Trump ultimately has on her father, although she has advocated on behalf of a number of issues outside her portfolio. She is one of his most trusted advisers and perhaps the one who knows him best, and has declined to speak out on topics on which she disagrees with the President.
“To voice dissent publicly would mean I’m not part of the team. When you’re part of a team, you’re part of a team,” she told the Financial Times. “That doesn’t mean everyone in the White House has homogeneous views – we don’t, and I think that’s good and healthy – but that doesn’t mean we’re publicly undermining (each other) and this administration.”
