Pentagon orders aircraft carrier to the Caribbean as Trump ramps up anti-drug operations

The Department of Defense is sending the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier and a strike group to the Caribbean, an escalation in the Trump administration’s efforts to target suspected drug-smuggling vessels.

The enhanced U.S. presence “will bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States homeland and our security in the Western Hemisphere,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a social media post.

Mr. Parnell said the move, ordered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, will “enhance and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking” and “degrade and dismantle” transnational criminal organizations.

The Ford carrier — considered the largest, and one of the most advanced, warships ever built — is currently deployed in the Mediterranean. It is the focus of Carrier Strike Group 12, which also includes the aircraft squadrons of Carrier Air Wing 8, the USS Normandy, a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser, along with the guided missile destroyers USS Mahan, USS McFaul, and USS Oscar Austin.

The action comes as the U.S. ordered an overnight strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean that killed six, bringing the total number of vessels hit to 10.

This is a major advancement of the Trump administration’s campaign against drug trafficking and transnational criminal networks since beginning strikes in September.

Vladimir Padrino Lopez, Venezuela’s defense minister, acknowledged that the country is facing its most dire threat in more than 100 years as a result of the U.S. naval buildup in the region, but said its armed forces are ready to protect the country. 

“We are here steadfast and very determined to continue defending every inch of our sovereignty, and that is why we are preparing every day,” Mr. Lopez said Thursday on state-controlled television. “We do not want war here in Venezuela or in the world; we want peace.”

The attacks and an unusually large U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean Sea and the waters off Venezuela have raised speculation that the administration could try to topple Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who faces charges of narco-terrorism in the U.S.

In the latest move, the U.S. military flew a pair of supersonic 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.