U.S. air and naval forces are set to deploy to the Southern Caribbean Sea following President Donald Trump’s directive for the Pentagon to use the military for operations against Latin American drug cartels, Reuters reported on Thursday.
Sources briefed on the move told Reuters that after Trump’s order, the Defense Department has begun deploying U.S. troops to address “threats to U.S. national security from specially designated narco-terrorist organizations in the region.” Last week, Trump quietly signed an order to deploy U.S. troops to conduct anti-cartel operations in foreign countries, according to The New York Times.
It remains unknown which specific cartels the president is targeting in his directive. After Trump was sworn into office, the United States designated seven drug cartels and two international criminal gangs as foreign terrorist organizations. Most of those cartels primarily operate in Mexico, but the reported deployment of troops to the South Caribbean Sea suggests that the operation will focus more on Central and South America.
Venezuela, whose northern coastline sits on the South Caribbean Sea, has been a recent subject of the Trump administration’s scrutiny. Shortly after the president took office, the State Department designated the Venezuelan international criminal gang, Tren de Aragua (TdA), as a foreign terrorist organization, and most recently added the Venezuelan Cartel de los Soles to its terrorist organization list.
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