Washington(CNN) Vice President Mike Pence is expected to visit Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and Australia in April, senior administration officials tell CNN.
Details on the trip are not yet public, but it represents a chance for Pence to smooth over relations with US allies who are adjusting to President Donald Trump's new leadership style and to discuss Trump's decision to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a deal that would have included Japan and Australia.
By going to Indonesia, Pence will also be visiting the largest Muslim nation in the world amid the Trump administration's crackdown on refugee travel and immigration from six Muslim-majority countries.
The senior aide declined to get into specifics on Pence's trip to Indonesia, but Indonesian leaders have expressed their displeasure with the travel ban.
"Even though this policy is the United States' authority, Indonesia deeply regrets it because we believe it would affect the global fight against terrorism," Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir told AFP in January. "It is wrong to link radicalism and terrorism with one particular religion."
The senior Pence aide said the vice president is headed to Japan to discuss the economy.
Pence will look for "ways to strengthen the economy in Japan and the United States" while visiting the US ally, the aide said.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe accepted Pence's offer to visit Japan early in the Trump administration when the prime minister visited the US in February, the aide added.
Pence's visit to South Korea comes amid turmoil in the country. South Korean President Park Geun-hye's impeachment has led to widespread rioting and uncertainty about the country's future political leadership.
It also comes at a time when North Korea has been, in the eyes of some experts, testing Trump with a series of ballistic missile tests. North Korean media said earlier this month that the launch of four missiles was meant to test the country's ability to hit US bases in Japan.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will visit South Korea this week.
The week in politics
Gloria Brown cheers during a rally in New York for International Women's Day, which was celebrated on Wednesday, March 8. "I'm here because I'm a woman, but I'm also here because of the lack of equality that women face," she said. "I want to show that we do have power by supporting each other. We have to keep fighting for our rights."
Read more: International Women's Day, in their words
John Erler protests at the Texas state capitol on Tuesday, March 7, as a state Senate committee
began hearings about Senate Bill 6, legislation that would require all Texans to use the bathroom that corresponds to the sex on their birth certificates when they're in public schools and government-funded buildings. Critics argue the bill unfairly discriminates against transgender people. Supporters say the bill would protect women and children and give them privacy and that it isn't intended to target any group.
Elizabeth Arjok, a Sudanese immigrant, sheds a tear Monday, March 6, as she speaks before the start of a news conference by the New York Immigration Coalition.
A revised travel ban was signed earlier that day by US President Donald Trump. The executive order, which temporarily stops immigration from six countries and reinstates a ban on all refugees, "breaks my heart," Arjok said at the news conference. She fled the war in Sudan when she was 7,
according to radio station WNYC.
After working through the night, US Rep. Tony Cardenas stretches Thursday, March 9, while members of the Energy and Commerce Committee argue the details of a health care bill introduced by top House Republicans.
Mark Toner, acting spokesman of the US State Department, thumbs through notes during a press briefing in Washington on Tuesday, March 7. It was the State Department's
first press briefing since President Trump took office. The news conference lasted just over an hour and included pointed questions on North Korea's recent missile launch, the administration's updated travel ban and Secretary Rex Tillerson's upcoming travel to Asia.
Chance the Rapper holds a news conference after
donating $1 million to Chicago public schools on Monday, March 6. The recent Grammy Award winner is from Chicago. Over the weekend, the rapper spoke with Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner to discuss recently announced cuts to school funding.
President Trump
surprises visitors who were touring the White House on Tuesday, March 7. The tour group, including many young children, cheered and screamed after the President popped out from behind a room divider.
FBI Director James Comey speaks at a cybersecurity conference in Boston on Wednesday, March 8. Comey warned that Americans
should not have expectations of "absolute privacy." But he added that Americans "have a reasonable expectation of privacy in our homes, in our cars, in our devices. It is a vital part of being an American. The government cannot invade our privacy without good reason, reviewable in court."
Activist Tamika Mallory, one of the founders of the Women's March movement, sits in the back of a police van Wednesday, March 8, after being detained for blocking traffic outside the Trump International Hotel and Tower in New York. Thirteen women outside the hotel
were arrested for disorderly conduct during the "Day Without a Woman" march, a spokesman for the New York Police Department said.
The Women's March tweeted: "Many of our national organizers have been arrested in an act of civil disobedience. We will not be silent."
Army Gen. Joseph Votel, commander of US Central Command, testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, March 9. Votel was updating the committee on operations in Afghanistan and Syria. He also
accepted full responsibility for a controversial January raid that resulted in the death of a Navy SEAL and several civilians in Yemen.
Transgender teen Gavin Grimm speaks during a news conference in Richmond, Virginia, on Monday, March 6. Grimm is barred from using the boys' bathroom at his high school in Virginia. The Supreme Court
sent his case back to a lower court on Monday, handing him a temporary setback.
Aldo Seoane helps set up teepees near the Washington Monument on Tuesday, March 7. He was with a group of Native Americans protesting construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Melania Trump, the first lady of the United States, hosts a White House luncheon for
International Women's Day on Wednesday, March 8.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer adjusts his American flag pin after he was told that it was upside down on Friday, March 10.
Protesters gather outside the Los Angeles Immigration Court building after a rally on Monday, March 6. The rally was held a few days after
the arrest of Romulo Avelica-Gonzalez, an undocumented immigrant who was detained by immigration agents as he drove his teenage daughter to school. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement that he was arrested because he has "multiple prior criminal convictions, including a DUI in 2009, as well an outstanding order of removal dating back to 2014." Since President Trump's inauguration, scores of unauthorized immigrants have been detained and deported under his administration's hard-line immigration stand.
Former US President Barack Obama waves Sunday, March 5, after leaving the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
See last week in politics
Pence's Australia visit will come months after Trump had a tense call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Trump, according to sources, objected to an agreement over the US receiving refugees from Australia during the call and abruptly ended the call because he was unhappy with the deal.
He later tweeted about the agreement: "Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal!"