The military deployment that the United States maintains in the Caribbean was expanded on Tuesday with the arrival of the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford and its attack group, the Navy of that country reported.
The Pentagon, cited by international media, described this aircraft carrier as the “largest in the world” and indicated that the arrival of the maritime forces occurs after the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, ordered the attack group to support President Donald Trump’s directive to supposedly dismantle transnational criminal organizations and combat narcoterrorism “in defense of the homeland.”
Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement that the goal is to strengthen Washington’s ability to “detect, monitor and disrupt illicit activities and actors that compromise the security and prosperity of the United States and our security in the Western Hemisphere.”
The USS Gerald R. Ford, in service since 2017, has a nuclear reactor and can house more than 75 military aircraft, including F-18 Super Hornet fighters and E-2 Hawkeye early warning aircraft, Telesur reported.
This US military deployment off the Venezuelan coast began last August with eight warships, F-35 fighters and a nuclear-powered submarine, under the pretext of combating drug trafficking.
However, Washington has carried out attacks on ships in both the Caribbean and the Pacific, pointing out that they were linked to drug trafficking, and murdering more than 70 people, whom he described as alleged “narcoterrorists”, but without presenting evidence of this.
Last October, Trump admitted that he had authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to carry out covert operations in Venezuelan territory.
For its part, the Government of Venezuela has repeatedly denounced the threat that this military deployment represents for the country and the region. The President of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro, has warned that Washington’s aggression aims to change the Government and appropriate the country’s wealth, mainly oil.
