Washington — The Pentagon said Friday that the United States is sending an aircraft carrier strike group to the waters off Latin America, an escalation that will dramatically increase the number of service members and ships dedicated to the Trump administration’s tasks. Campaign to fight drug traffickers.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said on Southern Command is responsible for the Caribbean Sea, Central and South America and surrounding waters.
Parnell said the “enhanced U.S. force presence” will “strengthen the United States’ ability to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the security and prosperity of the U.S. homeland and our security in the Western Hemisphere.”
The USS Gerald R. Ford is the Navy’s newest and most advanced aircraft carrier, entering service in 2017. At more than 1,100 feet long and displacing 100,000 long tons, the aircraft carrier is the largest in the world. It is powered by two nuclear reactors and can reach a top speed of 34.5 mph, according to the Navy.
The carrier group will join eight U.S. ships already in the region, including three destroyers, a cruiser, a littoral combat ship, an amphibious assault ship and two transport ships.
The Ford is currently in the Mediterranean Sea, a defense official told CBS News, along with three destroyers.
Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ridge Leoni/U.S. Navy via Getty Images 
News of the decision to send the aircraft carrier group to Latin America comes after the United States launched another attack on a ship allegedly operated by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua that Hegseth said was trafficking drugs in the Caribbean Sea.
The secretary said in X that the attack killed all six men on board and took place in international waters. He said it was the first attack that took place at night.
“Our intelligence knew that the ship was involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting a known drug trafficking route and was transporting narcotics,” he wrote. Hegseth posted a video, marked as unclassified, showing the ship when it was hit.
This latest attack appears to be the tenth carried out by the Trump administration against suspected drug trafficking vessels in recent weeks, which has already caused more than 40 deaths. The first took place in the Caribbean Sea, but this week the administration’s campaign expanded to the Pacific Ocean.