(WASHINGTON) — The USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group has arrived in the U.S. Southern Command area of operations north of the Caribbean Sea as part of the Trump administration’s campaign against drug cartels, the Navy’s Fourth Fleet announced Wednesday.
The carrier’s deployment to assist in operations against Latin American drug cartels was announced on Oct. 24 while it was on a port of call in Croatia. Since then it has made the lengthy transit through the Mediterranean Sea and across the Atlantic Ocean.
Typically the Pentagon’s announcements that a carrier group has entered a regional area of operations occur when they have crossed the furthest limits of that area, which for SOUTHCOM means somewhere in the Atlantic east of Florida and Cuba.
The strike group includes three destroyers that will augment the eight Navy surface ships already in the SOUTHCOM region. The sizable U.S. military presence in the region also includes a submarine, reconnaissance aircraft, 10 F-35 fighters and Reaper drones.
It was disclosed last week through imagery that an AC-130J gunship and two other reconnaissance aircraft have been operating from an El Salvador military base co-located at the country’s international airport, presumably as part of operations against the cartels.
The Ford carries more than 60 aircraft that could be used against the drug cartels.
“These forces will enhance and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking and degrade and dismantle Transnational Criminal Organizations,” Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said.
The Trump administration says it has killed 76 people in 19 strikes against alleged drug-running boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific Ocean since it began its campaign in September.
The 4,000 sailors and Marines aboard ships in the Ford strike group join the 10,000 troops already deployed to the Caribbean.
The Pentagon has said that the carrier’s deployment is tied to the operations targeting the drug cartels, but critics have asked if it is intended to be a show of force or potential operations targeting Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro regime.
Experts say that while Maduro is complicit in the drug trade, many of the drugs coming into the U.S. come via Mexico and sea routes in the Pacific, not the Caribbean, which is known more for shipping drugs to Europe.
The administration has flown B-52 bombers near the coast of Venezuela and B-1 bombers over the Caribbean in what appears to be a major show of force by President Donald Trump.
In addition, a special operations aviation unit conducted training exercises in international waters near Venezuela in October, a U.S. official said.
ABC News’ Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.
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