Biden administration Secretary of State of State Antony Blinken on Friday visited Tucson to participate in a “roundtable on synthetic drugs.” Despite visiting an emergency services call center and a passport office, he did not visit the southern border.
A State Department itinerary of Blinken’s schedule on Friday revealed he was slated to arrive at the Tucson Passport Center at 11:20 a.m. for a “meet and greet” with local employees.
By 12:55 p.m., Blinken was scheduled to “visit an emergency call center” with Mayor Regina Romero to “participate in a roundtable on synthetic drugs in Tucson, Arizona.”
It remains unclear what emergency call center Blinken visited, but the Tucson Passport Center he visited was approximately 90 minutes away from the Nogales Port of Entry where fentanyl smuggling grew increasingly rampant in 2023.
Despite not visiting the southern border, Blinken reportedly said during the synthetic drug event, “We have to work at the beginning of the supply chain and work every piece of it.”
Blinken also claimed the Biden administration is “working with Mexico in breaking up the cartels” to stymie the flow of synthetic opioids, which include fentanyl, but lamented that “ingredients” in the drugs “are often from across the world.”
Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs last September sent $10 million to the Nogales Police Department for “communications technology” in a bid to bolster security at the port of entry.
Following Blinken’s visit to Tucson, he traveled to the annual Sedona Forum held by the McCain Institute, where he and U.S. Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) delivered a “keynote conversation.”
Other speakers and high profile participants in the 2024 Sedona Forum included Hobbs, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, former Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg, and Washington Post reporter Yvonne Wingett Sanchez.
Blinken traveled to Arizona after traveling internationally last week.
His foreign travels included an ill-fated meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which ended with the Israeli head of state declaring that Hamas’ demands are unreasonable and Israel will invade Rafah “with or without” agreement to the ceasefire deal being brokered by the Biden administration.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
