Credibility: Trump’s Very Powerful Armada Heading South

White House all at sea over claims flotilla was heading to North Korea

On 11 April, the defence secretary, James Mattis, said the Vinson was “on her way up” to the peninsula.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said “when you a see a carrier group steaming into an area like that [it] is clearly a huge deterrence“.

The following day, Donald Trump said:

“We are sending an armada, very
powerful. We have submarines,
very powerful. Far more powerful
than the aircraft carrier.”

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Vice-president warns 'patience is over' with North Korea, says 'all options' on the table (photo: Newsweek)

○ Americans ‘always have to be concerned’ about the prospect of a thermonuclear war with North Korea

○ Trump loses track of US fleet at sea

A US aircraft carrier-led flotilla that the White House said last week was “steaming” towards North Korea to increase pressure on Pyongyang was actually thousands of miles away heading in the opposite direction.

The USS Carl Vinson and three other ships were heading towards North Korea but only after a string of misleading statements about their original course put out last week from the Trump administration.

In Washington, officials are facing questions and criticism over the location and original course of the Vinson flotilla, after it was photographed 3,500 miles away from North Korea, sailing south in the Sunda Strait at a time officials said it was sailing north.