The world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, and its strike group arrived in Latin America, raising the US military deployment in the regionthe United States Navy confirmed this Tuesday.
The jewel of the Pentagon joined the area of operations along with its strike group, which includes more than 4,000 sailors and dozens of tactical aircraft.
The Pentagon described the arrival of these maritime forces as direct support for President Donald Trump’s directive to dismantle alleged transnational criminal organizations and combat alleged narcoterrorism “in defense of the homeland.”
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the Carrier Strike Group (CSG) to join this operation.
This deployment intensifies Washington’s military presence in the area of the United States Southern Command (Southcom), which has already been attacking vessels allegedly dedicated to drug trafficking in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific.
The escort fleet of the USS Gerald R. Ford
Sean Parnell, chief Pentagon spokesman, stated in a statement that this “increased presence of US forces in the Southcom 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 the US territory and security in the Western Hemisphere.”
Parnell added that these forces “will enhance and expand existing capabilities to disrupt drug trafficking and weaken and dismantle transnational criminal organizations.”
The USS Ford strike group, whose escort includes the destroyers USS Bainbridge, USS Mahan and USS Winston Churchill, will significantly bolster US firepower in the vicinity of Venezuela.
With this addition, the Department of Defense has deployed a formidable arsenal that includes eight warships, F-35 fighters and at least one nuclear-powered submarine in the Caribbean area.
As part of this offensive, the US armed forces have carried out 17 operations, resulting in the deaths of at least 76 people, whom the government has described as “narcoterrorists.”
