Three US aircraft carriers sent to Asia before Trump's inauguration

Three American aircraft carriers will be in Asia during the transfer of power in the White House, reports the Japanese daily Nikkei Asia. On Monday, the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson arrived in the Central Pacific near Hawaii. According to publicly available information, he and his strike group are sailing further west, towards the Asian coast.

Earlier, two other American aircraft carriers had already appeared in Asia. The USS George Washington arrived at the Japanese port of Yokosuka on Friday. This city is the headquarters of the American 7th Fleet. A day later, the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and its strike group reached Port Klang, Malaysia.

Deploying as many as three American aircraft carriers to the same region is a rare situation. Back in August There were no American aircraft carriers in the Western Pacific. According to an expert quoted by “Nikkei Asia”, the deployment of such powerful US naval forces in Asia is related to the upcoming process of transfer of power in the White House Donald Trump and concerns about possible actions China at this time.

Jacob Stokes of the Washington think-tank Center for a New American Security notes that “the US Navy sees China as the biggest threat to political uncertainty in the next 50 days.” “China will try and test the Trump administration early, probably around Taiwan or the South China Sea, or both,” said an expert quoted by Nikkei Asia.

This testing, according to Stokes, is intended to help determine “which of the two faces of Trump Beijing will be dealing with.” “They saw a transactional Trump who wants to make a deal. But they may also see a confrontational Trump, just as they assessed his actions from mid-2018 until COVID,” he added.

Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president. President of the United States January 20, 2025.

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The Japanese media had already reported earlier on Friday's return of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington to the Yokosuka base near Tokyo. This is his second mission in Japanwhich – as the US army emphasizes – is an element of deterrence and security guarantees in the Asia-Pacific region.

The USS George Washington was the first American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier sent to Japan. From 2008 to 2015, he was stationed in Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo. The unit “returns with modernized, cutting-edge technology that embodies our investment in deterrence and security in this region,” Vice Admiral Fred Kacher, commander of the U.S. 7th Fleet, said in a statement, without mentioning China. “With increasing security threats in the region surrounding Japan, maintaining a strong U.S. Navy presence through the deployment of the USS George Washington and the 5th Air Combat Wing (CVW-5) is essential to Japan's security and maintaining peace and stability in the region,” it said. in turn, in a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan.