The U.S. military will send an aircraft carrier to waters off South America in the latest escalation, the Pentagon announced on Friday. Military firepower in an area Where the Trump administration has unleashed faster speeds Strikes against ships in recent days It charges drug possession.
Secretary of Defense Peter Heggs Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said on social media that the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier and its strike group were ordered to deploy to the U.S. Southern Command area to “enhance U.S. capabilities to detect, monitor and disrupt illegal actors and activities that harm U.S. security and prosperity.”
The five-destroyer USS Ford carrier strike group is now deployed to the Mediterranean ocean. One of the destroyers is in the Arabian Sea and the other is in the Red Sea, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. As of Friday, the aircraft carrier was anchored in a Croatian port on the Adriatic Sea.
The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations, would not say how long it would take the strike group to reach waters off South America or whether all five destroyers would arrive.
Deploying an aircraft carrier would add significant additional resources to the region, where the United States already has an unusually large military buildup in the Caribbean and waters off Venezuela. Latest deployment and The pace of US military strikes has acceleratedIncluding one on Friday that prompted new speculation about what the Trump administration might do in its so-called campaign against drug trafficking, including whether Attempts to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. he faces U.S. narco-terrorism charges
Send thousands of troops to the area
There are already more than 6,000 sailors and Marines aboard eight warships in the area. If the entire USS Ford strike group arrives, it could bring nearly 4,500 sailors and nine aircraft squadrons assigned to the carrier.
Tropical Storm Melissa makes things more complicatedit is nearly stationary in the central Caribbean and forecasters warn it could soon intensify into a powerful hurricane.
Hours before Parnell made the announcement, Hegseth said the military had conducted Tenth crackdown on suspected drug trafficking shipkilling six people, bringing the death toll from the attacks that began in early September to at least 43.
Hegseth said on social media that the ship that was hit at night was driven by Aragua Bang train. This is the second time the Trump administration Link one of his businesses to the gang Originated in a Venezuelan prison.
“If you were a narco-terrorist smuggling drugs in our hemisphere, we would treat you the same way we treat al-Qaeda,” Hegseth said in his post. “Day or night, we will map your networks, track your people, hunt you down, and kill you.”
The strikes, which started every few weeks last month, have increased to three this week, killing at least 43 people in total. The last two strikes The operations, conducted in the eastern Pacific, expanded the areas where the military could launch attacks and smuggled much of the cocaine there from the world’s top producers, including Colombia.
Trump administration escalates tensions with Colombia impose sanctions colombian president friday Gustavo Petrohis family and members of his government have been charged for their alleged involvement in the global drug trade.
Try it in Venezuela and Aragua
Friday’s strike, similar to the first announced last month in the United States, focused on Trende Aragua, which the Trump administration has Designated as a foreign terrorist organization and has been blamed for the violence and drug dealing that plagues some cities.
While it did not mention the origin of the latest vessel, the Republican government said at least four of the ships it hit were from Venezuela. On Thursday, the U.S. military Flying two supersonic heavy bombers all the way to the Venezuelan coast.
Maduro has argued that the U.S. action is the latest effort to force him from power.
Maduro on Thursday praised security forces and militias for conducting defensive drills along some 2,000 kilometers (about 1,200 miles) of coastline to prepare for possible U.S. attacks.
Within six hours, “100 percent of the country’s coastline was covered in real time, with all the equipment and heavy weapons necessary to defend all Venezuelan coasts,” Maduro said at a government event broadcast on state television.
Elizabeth Dickinson, senior analyst for the Andes region at the International Crisis Group, said the U.S. military presence was less about drugs and more about sending a message to countries in the region that was in U.S. interests.
“One thing I hear a lot is ‘drugs are an excuse.’ Everybody knows that,” Dickinson said. “I think the message is very clear in regional capitals.” So the message here is that the United States is committed to pursuing specific goals. It will use force against leaders and countries that do not abide by the rules. ”
Comparing the War on Drugs to the War on Terror
Hegseth’s comments about strikes have recently begun to attract attention direct comparison The relationship between the U.S.’s declaration of a war on terror following the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the Trump administration’s crackdown on drug traffickers.
President Donald Trump this month Declares drug cartels illegal combatants It said the United States was in “armed conflict” with them and relied on the same legal powers used by the Bush administration after 9/11.
When reporters asked Trump on Thursday whether he would ask Congress to declare war on the cartels, he said that was not the plan.
“I think we’re just going to kill the people who are bringing drugs into our country, okay? We’re going to kill them, you know? They’re going to be like dead,” Trump said during a White House roundtable.
Lawmakers from both major parties have expressed concern that Trump ordered military action without congressional authorization or providing many details.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Democratic Sen. Andy Kim, who has worked at the Pentagon and State Department, including as an adviser on Afghanistan.
“We don’t know where this is going to go and what the impact will be, you know, is this going to lead to us being in trouble?” he said.
“It’s time,” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican who has long been involved in foreign affairs in the Western Hemisphere, said of Trump’s approach.
Diaz-Balart said that while Trump “obviously hates war,” he is also not afraid of using U.S. troops for targeted operations. “I don’t want to be one of these drug cartels.”