The United States has deployed three Aegis guided-missile destroyers to the coast of Venezuela, amid President Trump's push to pressure Latin American drug cartels.
The USS Gravely, the USS Jason Dunham, and the USS Sampson are set to arrive shortly, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to comment and spoke Tuesday on the condition of anonymity to the Associated Press. They confirmed that U.S. military assets are being sent to the region for counter-narcotics operations and that the destroyers would be deployed “over the course of several months.”
The move comes as President Trump pushes to use the U.S. military against the cartels he blames for flooding American communities with fentanyl and fueling violence in American cities – both through illegal immigration, cross-border drug trafficking, as well as other long-established smuggling networks across land and sea – that Washington has previously failed to completely counter.
Trump has also pressed Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum to crack down harder on the cartels, warning that if she fails to act, he’s prepared to use the U.S. military inside Mexico. Sheinbaum has pushed back and has drawn a line at direct American military intervention, hopefully a sign that she will ensure President Trump's demands are met.
In February, the United States designated Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, El Salvador's MS-13, and six cartels based in Mexico as foreign terrorist organizations. This was also following President Trump's promise to the American people to crack down on illegal immigration and deport those already within the United States. According to the Department of Homeland Security, more than 324,000 illegal immigrants have been deported, about 70 percent with criminal records, including gang affiliations. Another 1.2 million have left the country on their own or self-deported. The United States Coast Guard in an effort to crack down on drug trafficking, has tripled their forces operating around the Southern border to " to detect, deter, and interdict alien and drug smuggling ventures."
