section_path: Government and politics/Foreign relations
section_name: Foreign relations
paragraph_text: Foreign relations
  
  Kenya has close ties with its fellow Swahili -speaking neighbours in the African Great Lakes region. Relations with Uganda and Tanzania are generally strong, as the three nations work toward economic and social integration through common membership in the East African Community.
  
  Relations with Somalia have historically been tense, although there has been some military co-ordination against Islamist insurgents. Kenya has good relations with the United Kingdom. Kenya is one of the most pro-American nations in Africa, and the wider world.
  
  With International Criminal Court trial dates scheduled in 2013 for both President Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto related to the 2007 election aftermath, US president Barack Obama, who is half-Kenyan, chose not to visit the country during his mid-2013 African trip. Later in the summer, Kenyatta visited China at the invitation of President Xi Jinping after a stop in Russia and not having visited the United States as president. In July 2015, Obama visited Kenya, the first American president to visit the country while in office.
  
  The British Army Training Unit Kenya (BATUK) is used for the training of British infantry battalions in the arid and rugged terrain of the Great Rift Valley.