President packs military might for for Asian tour of duty

Three aircraft carrier battle groups will shadow Donald Trump’s nine-day tour of Asia.

The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan is escorted into Busan port, South Korea. Picture: AP

The US is ramping up its military might in Asia on the eve of ­Donald Trump’s trip to the ­region.

Three aircraft carrier-led battle groups are being deployed to the region for the first time in six years for the President’s nine-day visit, which starts next Monday in Tokyo.

The USS Ronald Reagan, with its strike group, and USS Theodore Roosevelt, which is accompanied by a cruiser and three destroyers, have arrived in the region, close to North Korea.

The USS Nimitz group is travelling towards east Asia from the Middle East.

The USS Michigan, one of four US nuclear submarines capable of launching Tomahawk missiles, of which it is carrying 154, has arrived in Pusan, South Korea, with 66 Navy SEAL commandos aboard.

The US Navy said: “These ­deployments are part of a previously planned deployment cycle.”

Over the five weeks to the end of last month, the 36th Munitions Squadron unloaded 680 tonnes of munitions at the Andersen military base on Guam.

And the US Air Force is on the verge of deploying 12 of its new stealthy Lockheed Martin F-35A Joint Strike Fighter jets to Okinawa in Japan, with 300 personnel.

The Pacific Air Forces commander, General Terrence O’Shaughnessy, said the new planes provided “unprecedented global precision attack capability against current and emerging threats, while complementing our air superiority fleet”.

It is understood that these planes’ stealth factor would ­enable them to strike North Korea’s air defence capabilities and its command centre in the event of a war, by skirting around the country’s radar coverage.

US Defence Secretary James Mattis visited South Korea late last week for talks with top defence officials and with US commanders on the frontline. He said Washington’s “goal is not war” but denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

The North Korean ambassador to the UN, Ja Song-nam, has called on the UN Security Council to discuss recent joint US-South Korean naval exercises in waters alongside the peninsula, claiming they involved the ­“mobilisation of nuclear strategic assets”, meaning nuclear-powered or potentially armed vessels.

North Korea, which is expected to top the agenda at most bilateral talks during Mr Trump’s visits to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and The Philippines, was widely expected to fire a missile last week during China’s Communist Party congress.

Instead, dictator Kim Jong-un sent a congratulatory message to President Xi Jinping.

Mr Trump has decided to leave The Philippines before the East Asia Summit takes place there on November 14.

Philippines Foreign Secretary Alan Cayetano said Mr Trump “cannot extend another day because he has a long trip”, but the US President will participate in an ASEAN leaders’ dinner in Manila to celebrate the organisation’s 50th anniversary.