US to deploy USS Gerald R. Ford to Latin America
By Konstantin Toropin, The Associated Press
Oct 24, 2025, 02:04 PM
The U.S. military is sending an aircraft carrier to the waters off South America, in the latest escalation and buildup of military forces in the region, the Pentagon announced Friday.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford and its strike group to deploy to U.S. Southern Command to “bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a social media post.
The USS Ford, which has five destroyers in its strike group, is currently deployed to the Mediterranean Sea. A person familiar with the operation told The Associated Press that one of those destroyers is in the Arabian Sea and another is in the Red Sea. At the time of the announcement, the USS Ford was in port in Croatia on the Adriatic Sea.
The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations, would not say how long it would take for the strike group to arrive in the waters off South America or if all five destroyers would make the journey.
https://www.defensenews.com/news/your-military/2025/10/24/us-to-deploy-uss-gerald-r-ford-to-latin-america/
