History of the United States Navy the Panama Canal, which was completed in 1914. The Great White Fleet required almost 50 coaling ships, and during the cruise most of the fleet's coal was purchased from the British, who could deny access to fuel during a military crisis as they did with Russia during the Russo-Japanese War. When United States agents discovered that the German merchant ship "Ypiranga" was carrying illegal arms to Mexico, President Wilson ordered the Navy to stop the ship from docking at the port of Veracruz. On 21 April 1914, a naval brigade of marines and sailors occupied Veracruz. A total of 55
Mexican Drug War in tracing Mexican guns which were manufactured in or imported legally to the U.S. In 2008, it was falsely reported that ninety percent of arms either captured in Mexico or interdicted were from the United States. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and others have dispelled these claims, pointing that the Mexican sample submitted for ATF tracing is the fraction of weapons seized that appear to have been made in the U.S. or imported into the U.S. In 2015, Official reports of the U.S. government and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and explosives (ATF) revealed that over the last