Amid clouds of uncertainty over the ongoing tensions with Iran, the Pentagon on Wednesday (local time) announced that US Secretary of Navy John Phelan will leave the office "immediately". However, it didn't provide an explanation behind Phelan's sudden exit.
"Secretary of the Navy John C. Phelan is departing the administration, effective immediately," Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement on X (formerly Twitter). "On behalf of the Secretary of War and Deputy Secretary of War, we are grateful to Secretary Phelan for his service to the Department and the United States Navy."
"We wish him well in his future endeavors," Parnell said, while adding that Undersecretary Hung Cao will become the Acting Secretary of the Navy.
Trump at odds with military leaders?
Phelan's exit has taken place at a time when the Trump administration has removed many of its top generals and officers, including the heads of the US Navy and Coast, National Security Agency (NSA) chief and the vice chief of staff of the Air Force, after the Republican leader returned to the office for his second term.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has maintained that President Trump is choosing leaders he wants, but the Democrats have called a politicisation of the US military. Quoting a source, The Financial Times reported that civilian leaders at the Pentagon were at the odds with Phelan's shipbuilding programme, and also of "nominations and promotions of military officers".
Another report by the Associated Press (AP) claimed that Phelan was seen as an "outsider being brought in to shake up the Navy." The report, though, claimed that he was also a major donor to Trump's campaign, and had also founded the private investment firm Rugger Management LLC.
A busy time for US Navy
Phelan's exit has also take place at an occasion when the US Navy is having a busy time because of its deployment in the Middle East due to the conflict with Iran. So far, the US Navy has deployed three aircraft carriers or that are heading to the region, with Trump asserting that all the armed forces are poised to resume combat operations against Iran should the ceasefire expire.
Additionally, the US Navy has still maintained heavy presence in the Caribbean region despite the US military capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January.
Talking about Cao, he ran a failed US Senate bid in Virginia in 2024. His biography includes fleeing Vietnam with his family as a child in the 1970s. In a campaign video for his Senate bid, he compared Vietnam's communist regime during the Cold War to the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden, reports the AP.
