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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group to move to the Caribbean to support President Donald Trump’s campaign to “dismantle transnational criminal organizations” and “counter narco-terrorism,” the Pentagon said Saturday.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced the move on X, saying the carrier’s deployment will “bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities” threatening U.S. security in the Western Hemisphere.
The Gerald R. Ford, the Navy’s largest aircraft carrier, is currently stationed in the Mediterranean with three destroyers. Two U.S. officials said the group has not yet departed but will take about a week to reach its new station once underway.
The Ford’s arrival will nearly double the number of U.S. forces afloat in the region, adding 4,500 to 5,000 sailors and Marines to the roughly 6,000 already deployed on surface ships and a nuclear-powered submarine conducting counter-drug operations.
A show of force in the Caribbean
The deployment marks a significant escalation of U.S. policy in the region as Trump pledges to intensify strikes on suspected drug traffickers and insists that his actions do not require congressional approval.
Officials said the carrier’s movement is intended not only to increase operational capacity but also to send a message to cartels and affiliated networks that the U.S. military can project overwhelming force rapidly.
The announcement came hours after Hegseth said the U.S. military had destroyed a vessel allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean Sea — the third such strike in a week and the 10th since early September.
Hegseth said the strike targeted a boat linked to the Tren de Aragua gang, which the Trump administration has designated a terrorist organization. “Six male narco-terrorists were aboard … all six terrorists were killed and no U.S. forces were harmed,” he said on X, calling it the first nighttime strike of the campaign.
Earlier in the week, the Pentagon said another strike in the eastern Pacific killed three suspected traffickers.
A widening military campaign
According to administration figures, U.S. forces have conducted 10 strikes against drug-carrying vessels since early September, killing at least 43 people — eight in the Caribbean and two in the Pacific. The claims have not been independently confirmed.
Trump has publicly celebrated the attacks, claiming each destroyed vessel “saves 25,000 American lives.”
“It is rough, but if you lose three people and save 25,000 people, that’s a good trade,” Trump said last week at the White House.
Critics question legality and strategy
Trump has repeatedly compared his anti-cartel campaign to the post-9/11 “war on terror,” arguing that the U.S. is in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels and does not need congressional authorization for military strikes.
Pressed by reporters on whether he would seek a declaration of war, Trump replied, “I think we’re just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. We’re going to kill them. They’re going to be, like, dead.”
Lawmakers from both parties, however, say the administration has provided little information about the legal or intelligence basis for the strikes.
In a letter Friday to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., said the White House has failed to explain “the factual basis for and effects of the strikes” or whether intelligence agency attorneys have reviewed their legality.
They asked Gabbard to confirm in writing whether any independent legal analysis exists and, if not, to brief congressional intelligence committees on why it was deemed unnecessary.
Political and public implications
Cracking down on drug smuggling and fentanyl trafficking was a central promise of Trump’s 2024 campaign. His administration has since adopted an increasingly militarized approach — one that critics say risks bypassing traditional law enforcement mechanisms and legal limits on the use of force.
During a White House roundtable Thursday, Trump and Hegseth both defended the strikes. “We will find you, we will map your networks, we will hunt you down, and we will kill you,” Hegseth said.
Experts note that most fentanyl entering the U.S. comes through legal border crossings, not by sea. The bipartisan Commission on Combating Synthetic Opioid Trafficking has found that most fentanyl is smuggled in small, hard-to-detect quantities across the southern border.
Still, the administration has framed its maritime campaign as both symbolic and strategic — projecting strength abroad and fulfilling a key campaign pledge at home.
