News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Weds. June 12, 2024: US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Ambassador, Bonnie D. Jenkins, will travel to Guyana tomorrow.
Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Ambassador, Bonnie D. Jenkins,
Ambassador Jenkins will be in Guyana from June 13 – 14, 2024.While in Guyana, the Under Secretary will participate in bilateral meetings, meet with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), and attend side events to underscore the U.S. commitment to arms control, nonproliferation, and international security.
Her visit comes just days after The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), slapped sanctions on three Guyanese, including a government official.
Ambassador Jenkins, PhD, has served as the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security since July 22, 2021. As Under Secretary, she oversees three bureaus: the Arms Control, Deterrence and Stability Bureau; the International Security and Nonproliferation Bureau (ISN); and the Political-Military Affairs Bureau. In addition, as of May 2023, Secretary of State Antony Blinken named Under Secretary Jenkins as the senior official to lead the Department’s efforts on AUKUS implementation. She is the first African American to serve as an Under Secretary of State.
Jenkins previously served in the Obama Administration as Special Envoy and Coordinator for Threat Reduction Programs in the ISN bureau from July 2009 until January 2017. In that role, Ambassador Jenkins coordinated U.S. government efforts on threat reduction programs alongside international programs that prevent non-State actors with intent to do harm from acquiring chemical precursors, biological pathogens, nuclear material, and radiological sources to develop Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). She was also the State Department’s lead for all four of the Nuclear Security Summits held from 2010 to 2016, as well as the U.S. Representative to the G7 Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction.