USS Gerald R. Ford Arrives in the Caribbean, the Largest U.S. Aircraft Carrier

The Pentagon’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, and its strike group—comprising more than 4,000 sailors and dozens of tactical aircraft—arrived in Latin America this Tuesday, according to the U.S. Navy.

The Pentagon described the carrier as “the largest in the world,” noting that the arrival of these maritime forces follows an order from U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, directing the Carrier Strike Group to support President Donald Trump’s directive to dismantle alleged transnational criminal organizations and combat so-called narcoterrorism “in defense of the homeland.”

This deployment coincides with the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to strengthen its military presence within the U.S. Southern Command (Southcom) area of operations and to target vessels allegedly involved in drug trafficking on both sides of South America.

“The increased presence of U.S. forces within the area of responsibility of U.S. Southern Command will enhance the United States’ ability to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit activities and actors that threaten the security and prosperity of U.S. territory and our safety across the Western Hemisphere,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell stated in a press release on Tuesday.

Parnell also emphasized that these forces “will enhance and expand existing capabilities to disrupt drug trafficking and to weaken and dismantle transnational criminal organizations.”

The USS Gerald R. Ford, escorted in the region by the USS Bainbridge, USS Mahan, and USS Winston Churchill, will bolster U.S. firepower near Venezuela. The Department of War (formerly the Department of Defense) has deployed eight warships, F-35 fighter jets, and at least one nuclear-powered submarine in the Caribbean.

U.S. armed forces have been conducting strikes on vessels allegedly engaged in drug trafficking in both the Caribbean Sea and the Eastern Pacific, carrying out 17 operations that have resulted in the deaths of at least 76 individuals—whom the government has labeled as “narcoterrorists.”