Iran has threatened to send a flotilla into the western Atlantic, presumably to visit a friendly Latin American nation, such as Cuba, for years. The country's Navy chief said again in 2017 that it was a goal of the Islamic Republic.
"Our fleet of warships will be sent to the Atlantic Ocean in the near future and will visit one of the friendly states in South America and the Gulf of Mexico," Iran's state-run Fars news agency quoted Navy Commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi as saying in November 2017.
The tension between Iran and the U.S. has mounted after President Donald Trump's unilateral withdrawal from the international nuclear agreement reached under his predecessor and his move to reinstate harsh economic sanctions on Tehran.
While Iran's navy and Revolutionary guard vessels often harass American warships in the Persian Gulf, close to their home waters, it remains unclear how they might behave in the vast open waters of the Atlantic, especially under the watchful eye of the far superior U.S. military.
