JUST IN: Hegseth Sending Aircraft Carrier to Latin America’s Coast in ‘Major Escalation’
(Evan Vucci/AP photo)
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is sending an aircraft carrier to the coast of Latin America in what’s being called a “major escalation” of the Trump administration’s war on alleged “drug boats.”
The Pentagon will send the USS Gerald Ford to the area, where the U.S. has been conducting military strikes on boats suspected of running drugs to the U.S., according to the Associated Press, which called the move a “major escalation.”
“In support of the President’s directive to dismantle Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) and counter narco-terrorism in defense of the Homeland, the Secretary of War has directed the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group and embarked carrier air wing to the U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) area of responsibility (AOR),” Hegseth’s public affairs chief, Sean Parnell, posted to X on Friday.”
He added: “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. These forces will enhance and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking and degrade and dismantle TCOs.”
Hegseth’s order came after a new strike on a suspected drug-running boat in the Caribbean that killed six people.
The operation was carried out overnight Friday against the boat operated by the Venezuela-based gang Tren de Aragua, Hegseth said.
“Overnight, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War carried out a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Tren de Aragua (TdA), a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO), trafficking narcotics in the Caribbean Sea,” Hegseth said in an X post with a video of the strike.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
