The US military is sending an aircraft carrier from the Mediterranean Sea to the waters off South America, in the latest escalation and buildup of military forces in the region around Venezuela, the Pentagon announced Friday.
Deploying an aircraft carrier is a major escalation of military power in a region that has already seen an unusually large US military buildup in the Caribbean Sea and the waters off Venezuela.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford and its strike group to deploy to US Southern Command to bolster US capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States.
The USS Ford, which has five destroyers in its strike group, is currently deployed to the Mediterranean Sea.
Hours before Parnell announced the news, Hegseth said the military had conducted its 10th strike on a suspected drug-running boat, killing six people and bringing the death count for the strikes that began in early September to at least 43 victims.
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The strike drew parallels to the first announced by the US last month by focusing on Tren de Aragua, which the Trump administration has designated a foreign terrorist organization and blamed for being at the root of the violence and drug dealing that plague some cities.
While not mentioning the origin of the latest boat, the Republican administration says at least four of the fishing boats it has hit have come from Venezuela.
The attacks and an unusually large US military buildup in the region have raised speculation that the administration could try to topple Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who faces narcoterrorism charges in the US.
In the latest move, the US military flew a pair of hyper-sonic heavy bombers up to the coast of Venezuela on Thursday.
The Trump administration maintains that it’s combating drug trafficking into the United States, but Maduro argues that the operations are the latest effort to force him out of office.
Maduro on Thursday praised security forces and a civilian militia for defense exercises along some 2,000 kilometers of coastline to prepare for the possibility of a hostile US attack.
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In the span of six hours, 100% of all the country’s coastline was covered in real time, with all the equipment and heavy weapons to defend all of Venezuela’s coasts if necessary, Maduro said during a government event shown on state television.
Not war, not war, not war. Just peace, just peace, just peace. Forever, forever, forever. No crazy war, Maduro said on Friday, in comments apparently mocking Trump.
The US military’s presence is less about drugs than sending a message to countries in the region to align with US interests, according to Elizabeth Dickinson, the International Crisis Group’s senior analyst for the Andes region.
An expression that I’m hearing a lot is ‘Drugs are the excuse.’ And everyone knows that, Dickinson said.
And I think that message is very clear in regional capitals. So the messaging here is that the US is intent on pursuing specific objectives. And it will use military force against leaders and countries that don’t fall in line.
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Comparing the Drug Crackdown to the War on Terror
Hegseth’s remarks around the strikes have recently begun to draw a direct comparison between the war on terrorism that the US declared after the 11 September 2001 attacks that destroyed the World Trade Centre towers in New York.
Trump declared drug cartels to be unlawful combatants earlier this month and said the US was in an armed conflict with them, relying on the same legal authority used by the Bush administration after 9/11.
When reporters asked Trump on Thursday whether he would request Congress issue a declaration of war against the cartels, he said that wasn’t the plan.
I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK? We’re going to kill them, you know? They’re going to be like, dead, Trump said during a round-table at the White House with homeland security officials.
Lawmakers from both major political parties have expressed concerns about Trump ordering the military actions without receiving authorization from Congress or providing many details.
Democrats have insisted the strikes violate international law.
I’ve never seen anything quite like this before, said Senator Andy Kim, who previously worked in the Pentagon and the State Department.
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We have no idea how far this is going, how this could potentially bring in, you know, is it going to be boots on the ground, like in Panama? Is it going to be escalatory in a way where we could see us get bogged down for a long time? he said.
But Republican Representative Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, who has long been involved in foreign affairs in the hemisphere, said of Trump’s approach: It’s about time?
Euro News – AP / ABC Flash Point News 2025.
I thought Trump ran to keep the US out of wars ? The biggest sources of coke are Bolivia and Peru one would think you go after them .
Two of those fully loaded super fine ships can bring Maduro to his knees.
Well the reality of that is most of the Fentanyl that reaches American markets as cut comes from China .. Sure pharmaceutical drugs made in the Jungle are addictive and can be Over dosed on but Fentanyl well that’s a whole different beast entirely.. that mostly come from China to this Hemisphere.. One way or another … and that stuff is truly fatal in any dose .. But it’s more expedient to deploy an Aircraft carrier to the Caribbean than South China Sea .. it gives the impression of doing something even though the approach has been done before and… Read more »
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