Pentagon deploys Navy destroyer for unusual U.S. border mission
Source: Washington Post
Updated March 16, 2025 at 4:40 p.m. EDT
The Pentagon has deployed a Navy destroyer on an unusual mission to bolster security at the southern U.S. border, defense officials said, dispatching a warship involved last year in combat in the Middle East to waters typically patrolled by the U.S. Coast Guard. The USS Gravely, a guided-missile destroyer, left from Naval Weapons Station Yorktown in Virginia on Saturday as part of the Defense Department’s response to President Donald Trump’s executive order calling for securing the southern border. It marks the latest example of the Trump administration using the U.S. military at home to fend off what the president has claimed is an “invasion” at the border.
Gen. Gregory Guillot, who oversees U.S. Northern Command, said in a statement that the Gravely will improve U.S. abilities “to protect the United States’ territorial integrity, sovereignty and security.” Defense officials added in the same statement that the deployment will contribute to “a coordinated and robust response to combating maritime related terrorism, weapons proliferation, transnational crime, piracy, environmental destruction, and illegal seaborne immigration.”
U.S. defense officials, including Pentagon spokesmen John Ullyot and Sean Parnell, did not respond to questions about whether the Gravely’s deployment is meant to address a possible shortfall in available Coast Guard vessels, or if it is intended to send a signal to drug cartels in the region. Trump has in the past voiced a desire to launch military strikes against the cartels.
Trump has also repeatedly said in recent weeks that he wants to “take back” the Panama Canal, the vital waterway that connects the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. Ullyot said in a statement Sunday that the Pentagon has no announcements to make about a change in U.S. military presence in Panama, and that the Defense Department is “fully prepared to support the President’s national security priorities including those surrounding the Panama Canal.”
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/03/16/navy-destroyer-border-security/
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