The United States’ most advanced aircraft carrier arrived in the Caribbean Sea on Sunday in a display of U.S. military power, raising questions about what the new influx of troops and weaponry could signal for the Trump administration’s intentions in South America as it conducts military strikes against vessels suspected of transporting drugs, the AP reported.
The arrival of the USS Gerald R. Ford and other warships was announced by the US Navy in a public statement. It signals a major moment in the Trump administration’s ‘counterdrug operation,’ targeting ‘narcoterrorists,’ which has been widely regarded as an escalating pressure tactic against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
The Ford rounds off the largest buildup of US firepower in the region in generations.
With its arrival, the “Operation Southern Spear” mission includes nearly a dozen Navy ships and about 12,000 sailors and Marines.
The carrier’s arrival came as the military announced its latest deadly strike on a small boat it claims was engaged in transporting illegal drugs. The military’s Southern Command posted a video on X on Sunday showing the boat being blown up, an attack it said took place Saturday in international waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean and killed three men. A request for more information from the military was not immediately answered, according to the AP.
Since September, similar strikes carried out by the US in the Caribbean have killed at least 83 people. The carrier strike group, which includes squadrons of fighter jets and guided-missile destroyers, transited the Anegada Passage near the British Virgin Islands on Sunday morning, the Navy reported.
Rear Adm. Paul Lanzilotta, who commands the strike group, said it will bolster an already large force of American warships to “protect our nation’s security and prosperity against narco-terrorism in the Western Hemisphere.”
According to reports, US military “training exercises” have begun in Trinidad and Tobago, which is only 7 miles from Venezuela at its closest point.
Venezuela’s government has described the training exercises as an act of aggression. It had no immediate comment Sunday on the arrival of the aircraft carrier, the AP reported.
President Maduro, who faces charges of narcoterrorism in the US, has repeatedly said the US government is “fabricating” a war against him. On Sunday, he wrote on his Facebook page, “Venezuelan people are ready to defend their homeland against any criminal aggression.”
