US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s remarks in Puerto Rico come amid escalating tensions with Venezuela in Caribbean.
United States Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has told US Marines on board a warship stationed in Puerto Rico that their deployment to the Caribbean was “not training” in the latest sign that Washington intends to escalate its aggressive posture in the region.
Hegseth visited troops on the USS Iwo Jima warship on Monday, where, in reference to the administration’s push to curtail drug trade into the US, he said: “What you’re doing right now is not training; this is a real-world exercise on behalf of the vital national interests of the United States of America to end the poisoning of the American people.”
Hegseth, whose department was recently renamed by Trump from the Department of Defense to the Department of War, paid a surprise visit to the warship alongside Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In a post on X, Jenniffer Gonzalez, Puerto Rico’s governor, welcomed Hegseth and Caine and thanked Trump for “recognizing the strategic value Puerto Rico has to the national security of the United States and the fight against drug cartels in our hemisphere, perpetuated by narco-dictator Nicolas Maduro”, the president of Venezuela.
