Trump appoints Marine Commander to head US Latin America Command

US President Donald Trump has named a Marine general as commander of US Latin American forces, replacing an admiral who has criticized strikes on boats the US says are smuggling drugs off the coast of Venezuela.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegsey announced Friday in a statement on the Pentagon’s website that Trump had appointed Marine Gen. Francis L. Donovan to head the South American Command (SOUTHCOM), a position that oversees the ongoing US military deployment in the Caribbean.

Donovan is currently the assistant commander of US special operations, according to the Defense Department, and his appointment must be confirmed by the Senate before he can take up his new duties.

He will succeed Admiral Alvin Hulsey, who announced in mid-October that he would leave his post on December 12 to retire from the Navy.

US media revealed that he had expressed reservations about the Pentagon’s strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific.

Hulsey and Higseth merely referred to retirement, just a year after taking office, like many US military commanders who have left or been fired since Trump returned to the White House in January, without giving any reason.

Since the summer, the United States has deployed a large naval fleet in the Caribbean Sea with the stated goal of combating drug trafficking in Latin America, and has carried out a number of strikes on boats from Venezuela that it said were suspected of carrying drugs, while experts, nongovernmental organizations and US officials have questioned the legality of these operations.

For weeks, Trump has been threatening a ground intervention in Venezuela, which is headed by Nicolás Maduro, an enemy of the United States.

The US president kept the possibility of war with Venezuela on the table in an interview published Friday, after the US escalated pressure on Caracas with an oil blockade.