The Pentagon said Friday that the U.S. has ordered the deployment of the Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group to the waters off South America to implement the president's directive to dismantle transnational criminal networks.

The USS Gerald R. Ford is the Navy’s newest and most technologically advanced aircraft carrier.

In a post on X, Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, wrote, “The enhanced U.S. force presence in the USSOUTHCOM AOR [U.S. Southern Command’s area of responsibility] will bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States homeland and our security in the Western Hemisphere.”

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“These forces will enhance and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking and degrade and dismantle TCOs.”

The announcement comes hours after Secretary of War Pete Hegseth reported the latest missile strike on a maritime vessel in international waters. “The vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics,” Hegseth said.

At least 43 people have been killed in strikes off South America since September.