Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The US mil­i­tary is send­ing the largest war­ship ever con­struct­ed to the wa­ters off South Amer­i­ca, mark­ing the lat­est es­ca­la­tion in the buildup of mil­i­tary forces in the re­gion.

Ac­cord­ing to Pen­ta­gon spokesman Sean Parn­dell, De­fence Sec­re­tary Pe­te Hegseth or­dered the USS Ger­ald R Ford and its strike group to de­ploy to US South­ern Com­mand “to bol­ster US ca­pac­i­ty to de­tect, mon­i­tor, and dis­rupt il­lic­it ac­tors and ac­tiv­i­ties that com­pro­mise the safe­ty and pros­per­i­ty of the Unit­ed States,” yes­ter­day.

Com­mis­sioned in 2017, the USS Ger­ald R Ford can car­ry more than 75 air­craft and is de­signed to op­er­ate with a to­tal com­ple­ment of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 4,539 per­son­nel. De­ploy­ing an air­craft car­ri­er rep­re­sents a ma­jor es­ca­la­tion of mil­i­tary pow­er in a re­gion that has al­ready seen an un­usu­al­ly large US mil­i­tary pres­ence in the Caribbean Sea and the wa­ters off Venezuela.

News of the de­ploy­ment came just hours af­ter the US mil­i­tary con­duct­ed its 10th strike on a sus­pect­ed drug-run­ning ves­sel. Hegseth, speak­ing yes­ter­day, blamed the Tren de Aragua gang for op­er­at­ing the boat, which re­sult­ed in six deaths in the Caribbean Sea.

The pace of strikes has quick­ened in re­cent days, in­creas­ing from rough­ly one every few weeks when op­er­a­tions first be­gan to three this week alone, killing a to­tal of at least 43 peo­ple since Sep­tem­ber. Two of the most re­cent strikes were car­ried out in the east­ern Pa­cif­ic Ocean, ex­pand­ing the area of op­er­a­tions and tar­get­ing re­gions where much of the co­caine from the world’s largest pro­duc­ers is smug­gled.

The de­ploy­ment of the USS Ger­ald R. Ford comes as Trinidad and To­ba­go pre­pares to re­ceive the USS Grave­ly, a guid­ed mis­sile de­stroy­er, on Sun­day.

Amid pub­lic con­cern over the USS Grave­ly’s ar­rival dur­ing height­ened US-Venezuela ten­sions, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at­trib­uted any pan­ic or un­ease to the Op­po­si­tion PNM, which she said seeks to overt­ly un­der­mine ef­forts to stop drug, arms, and hu­man traf­fick­ing.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the vis­it forms part of on­go­ing se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Unit­ed States, ques­tion­ing why the Op­po­si­tion would at­tempt to sow fear and con­fu­sion to un­der­mine those ef­forts.

She said, “It is most con­cern­ing that the PNM, a par­ty long sus­pect­ed of be­ing fi­nanced by the lo­cal drug mafia, is overt­ly at­tempt­ing to un­der­mine ef­forts to stop drug, arms, and hu­man traf­fick­ing in­to our coun­try. Clear­ly, the PN­Ms’ dai­ly dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign is aimed at de­rail­ing the drug and arms in­ter­dic­tion ef­forts so as to pro­tect their drug mafia fi­nanciers.”

The Prime Min­is­ter wel­comed the US Navy and Ma­rine Corps for a “joint mil­i­tary train­ing with the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force.” She added, “The Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs has stat­ed that the USS Grave­ly (DDG-107) will vis­it Trinidad and To­ba­go from Oc­to­ber 26 to 30, moor­ing in Port-of-Spain, while the 22nd US Ma­rine Ex­pe­di­tionary Unit will con­duct joint train­ing ex­er­cis­es with the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force (TTDF) dur­ing the same pe­ri­od.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so high­light­ed long­stand­ing bor­der se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges, not­ing, “For far too long, this coun­try’s bor­ders have been poor­ly se­cured and have fa­cil­i­tat­ed the traf­fick­ing of hu­mans, drugs, and firearms. Tens of thou­sands of il­le­gal mi­grants have en­tered our coun­try, and over 10,000 cit­i­zens have been bru­tal­ly mur­dered in the last two decades.”

Turn­ing back to the PNM, the Prime Min­is­ter said, “Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the Op­po­si­tion PNM and their agents are per­sis­tent in cre­at­ing un­nec­es­sary hys­te­ria and con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries in a des­per­ate at­tempt to cre­ate in­sta­bil­i­ty and chaos.”

Mean­while, the Unit­ed States Em­bassy in T&T said the US mil­i­tary’s pres­ence is part of long­stand­ing co­op­er­a­tion be­tween both na­tions.

US Em­bassy Chargé d’Af­faires Dr Jenifer Nei­d­hart de Or­tiz said, “The part­ner­ship be­tween the Unit­ed States and Trinidad and To­ba­go ex­em­pli­fies re­gion­al strength through col­lab­o­ra­tion. To­geth­er, we ad­dress shared threats like transna­tion­al crime and build re­silience through train­ing, hu­man­i­tar­i­an mis­sions, and se­cu­ri­ty ef­forts.