US Secretary of State John Kerry will head to Paris later this week, amid criticism that the Obama administration hasn't done enough to respond to last week's terror attacks in Paris.
There was no senior American figure participating in Sunday's march honoring the victims of last week's violence.
The White House says its critics are "quibbling", but the Secretary of State has changed his plans this week nonetheless.
Our Washington Correspondent Simon Marks reports.
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Did the United States miss the boat after last week's attacks in Paris, and pass up a golden opportunity to try and win hearts and minds in France?
That's the claim being made by Republicans….like Congressman Lee Zeldin of New York who spoke to Fox News.
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White House officials say a Presidential visit to Paris would have soaked up valuable security resources.
But it wasn't only the President who failed to join the 40 world leaders honoring the dead in Paris on Sunday.
Vice President Joe Biden wasn't there either….a man whose very job lends itself to attending events like the one that brought 3.7 million people onto the streets of France.
Nor was Secretary of State John Kerry - who never usually misses a chance to call France "America's oldest ally".
Instead, the US was represented on the march only by US Ambassador Jane Hartley…a woman rarely known to rub shoulders with David Cameron, Angela Merkel, Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas.
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Speaking in India…for that's where he was….Secretary of State John Kerry hit out at White House critics including several leading foreign policy analysts who argued the Obama administration had missed a golden opportunity to rally European support for counter-terrorism strategies worldwide.
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However, the Secretary of State will now travel to Paris on Thursday for meetings with the government of President Francois Hollande.
And the White House is planning to hold a summit of its own on violent extremism in Washington next month in a further bid to assert its leadership position in the battle against terror.