Aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) operates in the eastern Atlantic Ocean, Nov. 5, 2025. US Navy photo

This post was updated with a statement from U.S. 4th Fleet. 

Aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) is now operating in U.S. Southern Command, USNI News has learned.
Gerald R. Ford, the embarked Carrier Air Wing 8 and its escorts were tasked on Oct. 24 to transit from the Mediterranean Sea to support the growing naval build up in SOUTHCOM.

“Through unwavering commitment and the precise use of our forces, we stand ready to combat the transnational threats that seek to destabilize our region,” SOUTHCOM commander Adm. Alvin Holsey said in a Tuesday statement.

The carrier sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar on Nov. 4. along Ford and its escorts had been lingering off the western coast of Africa, just outside of the boundary of the combatant command that begins a few miles to the west of Cape Verde, off the coast of Senegal and just south of the Tropic of Cancer.

Ford’s escorts include guided-missile destroyers USS Bainbridge (DDG-96), USS Mahan (DDG-72) and USS Winston Churchill (DDG-81). Destroyers USS Mitscher (DDG-57) and USS Forrest Sherman (DDG-98), which deployed with the Ford CSG in June, are operating in the Middle East and the Mediterranean respectively, according to Monday’s USNI News Fleet and Marine Tracker.

Ship spotters detected Bainbridge off the coast of Puerto Rico early Tuesday. Bainbridge sailed with Ford through Gibraltar.

Ford and its escorts join destroyers USS Stockdale (DDG-106) and USS Gravely (DDG-107), guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG-70) and amphibious warships USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7), USS Fort Lauderdale (LPD-28) and USS San Antonio (LPD-17) are also operating in U.S. Southern Command. The Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group is sailing with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Force embarked.

Littoral Combat Ship USS Wichita (LCS-13), destroyer USS Jason Dunham (DDG-109) and attack submarine USS Newport News (SSN-750) are no longer operating in SOUTHCOM, USNI News understands.

Ford arrives in SOUTHCOM amid a U.S. campaign striking suspected narcotics traffickers in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific. As of Tuesday morning, the Pentagon has announced 19 strikes that have killed 76 people who officials say are part of transnational criminal organizations.

“The enhanced U.S. force presence in the USSOUTHCOM AOR 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,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement issued by U.S. 4th Fleet. “These forces will enhance and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking and degrade and dismantle transnational criminal organizations.”