The world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, has arrived in the Caribbean as the war on drug traffickers being waged by Donald Trump’s administration threatens to escalate.
The Ford’s deployment was announced on October 24, and its strike group set sail from Croatia on November 4, crossing the Mediterranean and Atlantic and entering the U.S. Southern Command’s area of responsibility on Tuesday.
The group includes nine embarked squadrons of Carrier Air Wing Eight, plus the guided-missile destroyers USS Bainbridge and USS Mahan, and the missile defense command ship USS Winston S Churchill, according to the Air Force Times.
They will join the eight other Navy vessels already stationed in the region, including the USS Iwo Jima, USS Fort Lauderdale, USS San Antonio, USS Lake Erie, USS Jason Dunham, USS Gravely, USS Stockdale, and USS Wichita.
The Ford hosts 60 aircraft and an estimated 4,000 sailors, while an additional 6,000 personnel are spread across the eight vessels already present.
The considerable U.S. military presence in the area also includes a submarine, reconnaissance aircraft, 10 F-35 fighters, and Reaper drones, according to ABC News.
An AC-130J gunship and two other reconnaissance aircraft have meanwhile been spotted via satellite imagery operating from an El Salvador military base near that country’s international airport, likely for use in operations against the 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 spokesperson, said in a statement.
“Through unwavering commitment and the precise use of our forces, we stand ready to combat the transnational threats that seek to destabilize our region,” Admiral Alvin Holsey of Southern Command, who is stepping down at the end of the year for undisclosed reasons, added.
The move is being interpreted as a show of force against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom the administration has accused of being complicit in the illegal drugs trade. Still, critics have argued that the majority of drugs smuggled into the U.S. from Latin America come overland via Mexico or via the Pacific, not the Caribbean.
The B-52 and B-1 have been flown over the region in recent weeks, and a special operations aviation unit conducted training exercises in international waters near Venezuela last month, two gestures that are similarly interpreted as warnings.
The Trump administration began opening fire on boats in the Caribbean on September 2 and has since expanded its assaults to the eastern Pacific, killing at least 75 people in 19 strikes on alleged smuggling boats.
It has justified its actions by claiming it is stopping illegal intoxicants from reaching American shores while failing to provide evidence to support its assertions.
Human rights groups and experts in international law have warned that the killings are illegal, the governments of both Venezuela and Colombia have accused the administration of engaging in extrajudicial murder, and, on Tuesday, the U.K. ended regional intelligence sharing with the U.S., expressing disapproval of its actions.
In addition, lawmakers from both the Republican and Democratic parties have pressed the administration for more information about who is being targeted and the legal basis for its conduct.
By way of response, Trump has insisted the U.S. is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels, relying on the same legal authority used by the George W Bush administration when it declared its “War on Terror” after the Al-Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001.
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