US destroyer ship in Gulf waters is ‘not an attack on Mexico,’ says Sheinbaum

A U.S. Navy warship was deployed to the Mexico-United States borderline to antagonistic amerciable immigration, cause and weapons trafficking, arsenic good arsenic transnational crime, the Pentagon announced connected Monday.

The USS Gravely departed Naval Weapons Station Yorktown, Virginia, connected Saturday, embarking with a U.S. Coast Guard instrumentality enforcement detachment (LEDET) with orders to enactment successful operations wrong U.S. and planetary waters, according to a U.S. Department of Defense property release.

La presidenta @Claudiashein aclaró que el despliegue del buque destructor estadounidense USS Gravely en el Golfo de México tiene como objetivo vigilar aguas internacionales y aseguró que esta acción “no es contra México”. pic.twitter.com/W28xK0fXV4

— La Crónica de Hoy (@LaCronicaDeHoy) March 18, 2025

On Tuesday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said the U.S. authorities had informed her of the cognition earlier the Gravely acceptable sail. She said the U.S. warship volition not participate Mexican waters and volition adhere to planetary navigation regulations.

“[The U.S.] is wrong its rights to bash this,” she said. “It would person been atrocious if they had not advised america oregon if they entered nationalist waters … but this is not an onslaught connected Mexico.” 

The U.S. Department of Defense described the determination arsenic a important displacement successful its attack to borderline control, giving the U.S. Navy a nonstop relation successful stopping threats earlier they scope U.S. shores.

The Gravely — an Arleigh Burke-class guided rocket destroyer — antecedently served successful the Red Seas successful the Middle East, tasked with shooting down missiles fired by Houthi rebels.

“The deployment of Gravely marks a captious enhancement to our nation’s borderline information framework,” Admiral Daryl Caudle of the U.S. Naval Forces Northern Command, said.

According to a U.S. Navy property release, the warship is heading to the waters disconnected the U.S. Gulf Coast arsenic portion of the military’s effect to U.S. President Donald Trump’s enforcement bid and nationalist exigency declaration to unafraid the nation’s borderline with Mexico.

#México El Pentágono ha desplegado el destructor USS Gravely, equipado con misiles Tomahawk, al Golfo de México para labores antinarcóticos, según confirmó el wide Alexus G. Grynkewich, manager de operaciones del Estado Mayor Conjunto. pic.twitter.com/aKuWJQmfZ9

— Gildo Garza (@GildoGarzaMx) March 18, 2025

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said Monday that the extremity is to execute “100% operational control” implicit the United States’ confederate borders, adding that “the naval beingness is portion of the ngo of the USS Gravely to unafraid maritime routes and support our confederate borders.”

Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich, the operations brag for the Joint Staff, who was briefing alongside Parnell, said that the vessel volition “be progressive successful the interdiction ngo for immoderate of the drugs and whatnot that are heading in.”

Pentagon officials did not connection details arsenic to wherefore a Navy destroyer, and not a Coast Guard cutter, was chosen for the mission, particularly aft U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said helium wouldn’t regularisation retired conducting aerial strikes implicit Mexico.

The Arleigh Burke-class of destroyer features an Aegis Combat System and is capable to behaviour anti-aircraft warfare with surface-to-air missiles, tactical onshore strikes with Tomahawk missiles, anti-submarine warfare and anti-surface warfare with ship-to-ship missiles and guns. In all, these destroyers tin transportation up to 96 missiles.

The deployment of the Gravely is designed to supply enactment to the thousands of active-duty U.S. troops ordered to the U.S.-Mexico borderline since Trump took bureau connected Jan. 20. Nearly 10,000 U.S. work members are scheduled to beryllium deployed astatine the border, according to U.S. Northern Command. 

With reports from NPR, El Financiero, El Universal and Military.com