A US nuclear-armed submarine arrived in Gibraltar on Sunday in a rare public acknowledgment of the location of one of the covert watercraft, a move seen as a veiled threat against Iran.
“A US Navy ballistic missile submarine arrived in Gibraltar, May 10, 2026. The port visit demonstrates US capability, flexibility, and continuing commitment to its NATO allies,” the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet said in a statement released the same day that President Trump rejected Iran’s latest response to a US proposal for a deal.
“Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines are undetectable launch platforms for submarine-launched ballistic missiles, providing the US with its most survivable leg of the nuclear triad,” the statement added.
Each Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine is armed with nuclear-armed Trident II D5 Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles, which have a range of at least 4,500 miles. The last time the US publicly docked one of the submarines overseas was in 2023, when President Biden sent a nuclear-armed submarine to South Korea for the first time in decades, and simultaneously deployed one to Scotland.
The US docking a ballistic missile submarine in Gibraltar, a British overseas territory on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula that’s also claimed by Spain, could also be meant as a snub against Spain, which has opposed the US-Israeli war against Iran and didn’t allow its bases to be used for the conflict.
According to The Olive Press, the US docked nuclear-powered submarines in Gibraltar in 2021 and 2022, and the Spanish government protested that the submarines were sent to the British territory rather than to the nearby naval base in Rota, Spain.
