The Pentagon confirmed on Friday that the U.S. military will send the USS Gerald R. Ford to waters off South America. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth ordered the deployment to strengthen operations under U.S. Southern Command. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said on social media that the mission aims to detect and disrupt networks threatening U.S. security and prosperity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The USS Gerald R. Ford, supported by five destroyers, currently operates in the Mediterranean Sea. Sending the carrier represents a sharp military escalation in a region already packed with U.S. naval forces across the Caribbean and off Venezuela\u2019s coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hours before the deployment announcement, Hegseth revealed the military\u2019s tenth strike on a suspected drug-trafficking vessel. The nighttime assault killed six people, increasing the total death toll to at least 43 since early September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Officials identified the vessel as connected to the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, which Washington has labeled a foreign terrorist organization. Hegseth described the attack as the first conducted at night and vowed to pursue traffickers with the same intensity once used against Al-Qaeda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf you are smuggling drugs in our hemisphere, we will find you, hunt you down, and eliminate you,\u201d Hegseth said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
U.S. officials linked several targeted boats to Venezuela, accusing President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u2019s government of enabling narcotics networks. The U.S. military recently flew hypersonic bombers along Venezuela\u2019s coastline, intensifying regional tension and speculation about intervention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maduro praised his armed forces and civilian militias for large-scale defense drills covering 2,000 kilometers of coastline. Speaking on state television, he claimed full real-time coverage of the nation\u2019s borders. \u201cNot war, just peace\u2014forever,\u201d Maduro declared, appearing to mock Trump\u2019s threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Regional analysts say Washington\u2019s campaign serves political goals beyond counter-narcotics. Elizabeth Dickinson of the International Crisis Group said, \u201cDrugs are the excuse. Everyone knows it.\u201d She added that U.S. actions signal a willingness to use force against leaders who refuse to align with American objectives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hegseth compared the anti-drug campaign to the post-9\/11 war on terror. Trump designated cartels as unlawful combatants and said the U.S. was in armed conflict with them. When asked about a formal war declaration, Trump replied, \u201cWe\u2019re just going to kill the people bringing drugs into our country\u2014they\u2019re going to be dead.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Pentagon confirmed on Friday that the U.S. military will send the USS Gerald R. Ford to waters off South America. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth ordered the deployment to strengthen operations under U.S. Southern Command. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said on social media that the mission aims to detect and disrupt networks threatening U.S.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pappusaha.com\/euronews24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pappusaha.com\/euronews24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pappusaha.com\/euronews24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pappusaha.com\/euronews24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pappusaha.com\/euronews24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pappusaha.com\/euronews24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pappusaha.com\/euronews24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pappusaha.com\/euronews24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pappusaha.com\/euronews24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pappusaha.com\/euronews24\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}