The Pentagon’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, and its strike group – more than 4,000 Marines and dozens of tactical aircraft – arrived in Latin America on Tuesday, according to the U.S. Navy.
The Pentagon described this aircraft carrier as “the largest in the world” and noted that the arrival of the maritime forces comes after U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth ordered the Carrier Strike Group to support U.S. President Donald Trump’s directive to dismantle alleged transnational criminal organizations and combat suspected narcotics trafficking. Pete Hegseth ordered the Carrier Strike Group to support US President Donald Trump’s directive to dismantle suspected transnational criminal organizations and combat suspected narco-terrorism “in defense of the homeland.”
USS Gerald R Ford aircraft carrier arrives in Latin America
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This deployment comes as the Trump Administration beefs up its military presence in the US Southern Command (Southcom) area and attacks suspected drug trafficking vessels on both sides of South America.
“The increased presence of U.S. forces in the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility will strengthen the United States’ ability to detect, monitor and disrupt illicit activities and actors that compromise the security and prosperity of U.S. territory and our security in the Western Hemisphere,” Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement.
Parnell also indicated that these forces “will enhance and expand existing capabilities to disrupt drug trafficking and weaken and dismantle transnational criminal organizations.
The USS Ford, whose escort in the area includes the USS Bainbridge, USS Mahan and USS Winston Churchill, will bolster U.S. firepower in the vicinity of Venezuela, as the War Department (formerly known as the Department of Defense) has deployed eight warships, F-35 fighters and at least one nuclear-powered submarine to the Caribbean.
The U.S. military has been attacking alleged drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific, carrying out 17 operations that have resulted in the deaths of at least 76 people, whom the government has labeled “narco-terrorists”.
With information from EFE
