Use of USS Gerald Ford along with fighter jets comes as president plots strikes against alleged cartels on land
Use of USS Gerald Ford along with fighter jets comes as president plots strikes against alleged cartels on land
The Pentagon said on Friday that it was deploying the United States’s most advanced aircraft carrier to the Caribbean, a major escalation in the Trump administration’s war against drug cartels that provides the resources to start conducting strikes against targets on the ground.
The move will bring the USS Gerald Ford carrier, with dozens of stealth fighter jets and surveillance aircraft, in addition to other warships that accompany the carrier, to the coast of Venezuela as it nears the end of its current deployment in the Mediterranean.
Sending the carrier strike group to the Caribbean is the clearest sign to date that the administration intends to dramatically expand the scope of its lethal military campaign from hitting small boats alleged to be carrying drugs bound for the US to targets on land.
The carrier strike group has dozens of F-35 fighter jets that increases the firepower and ability for the US to hit air-defense systems in Venezuela. That would clear the way for US special operations or drones to destroy land-based targets, current and former officials said.
