USS Gerald R. Ford and its strike group, carrying more than 4,000 sailors and dozens of tactical aircraft, entered the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility after the Pentagon directed it to depart the Mediterranean in late October. At the time, officials argued it was needed to assist in dismantling transnational criminal organizations and curbing drug smuggling.
"The enhanced U.S. force presence in the USSOUTHCOM AOR will bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States homeland and our security in the Western Hemisphere," chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement on Tuesday.
The Ford, whose escorts in the area include the USS Bainbridge, USS Mahan, and USS Winston Churchill, will further bolster U.S. firepower in the vicinity of Venezuela, as the DOD has already deployed eight warships, F-35 fighter jets, and at least one nuclear-powered submarine in the Caribbean.
The tensions between Washington and Venezuela have ramped up as Trump administration officials have called Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro an "illegitimate leader" and associated him with drug-trafficking operations in the region, which he has denied.
In a recent interview on CBS's "60 Minutes," President Trump indicated Maduro's days were numbered. Maduro has argued that the U.S. military buildup in the region is meant to force him out of office.
At the same time, the U.S. military has been bombing boats the administration has claimed without evidence are drug smuggling vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific. The Pentagon has conducted 17 strikes that have killed at least 76 people, whom the administration has called "narco-terrorists."
Read the full report at thehill.com.
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