Kayla Epstein And
Josh Cheetham,BBC Check
The United States is deploying the world’s largest warship to the Caribbean, marking a major escalation in its military buildup in the region.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday ordered the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R Ford, which can carry up to 90 aircraft, to leave the Mediterranean.
The United States has increased its military presence in the Caribbean in recent weeks, sending more warships, a nuclear submarine as well as F-35 jets in what it says is a campaign to target drug traffickers.
He has carried out ten airstrikes on boats believed to belong to traffickers, including one on Friday when Hegseth said “six male narcoterrorists” had been killed.
This operation took place in the Caribbean Sea, against a ship that Hegseth said belonged to the criminal organization Tren de Aragua.
The strikes have been condemned in the region and experts have questioned their legality. The Trump administration says it is waging a war on drug trafficking, but it has also been accused by experts and members of Congress of launching a campaign of intimidation aimed at destabilizing the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Maduro is a longtime foe of Trump and the US president has accused him of being the leader of a drug trafficking organization, which he denies.
“It’s a regime change. They’re probably not going to invade, the hope is that it’s a signal,” Dr Christopher Sabatini, senior fellow for Latin America at the Chatham House think tank, told the BBC.
He argued that the military buildup aims to “sow fear” in the hearts of the Venezuelan military and Maduro’s immediate entourage so that they will act against him.
In its announcement on Friday, the Pentagon said the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R Ford would be deployed to the US Southern Command area of responsibility, which includes Central and South America and the Caribbean.
The additional forces will “strengthen and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking and degrade and dismantle TCOs,” or transnational criminal organizations, spokesman Sean Parnell said.
Deploying the aircraft carrier would provide the resources needed to begin conducting strikes against ground targets. Trump has repeatedly raised the possibility of what he called a “land action” in Venezuela.
“We are certainly looking at land now, because we have the sea very well under control,” he said earlier this week.
This comes as CNN reports that Trump is considering targeting cocaine facilities and drug trafficking routes inside Venezuela, but has yet to make a final decision.
The aircraft carrier last made its position public three days ago off the Croatian coast in the Adriatic Sea.
Its deployment marks a significant escalation of the American military buildup in the region. It also risks increasing tensions with Venezuela, whose government has long been accused by Washington of harboring drug traffickers.
The carrier’s wide-body load may include transport and reconnaissance jets and aircraft. Its first long-term deployment took place in 2023.
It is unclear which ships will accompany it as it moves through the region, but it may operate as part of a strike group that includes destroyers carrying missiles and other equipment.
The United States has carried out a series of strikes on boats in recent weeks, in what President Donald Trump has described as an attempt to curb drug trafficking.
Pete Hegseth on XThe strike announced Friday was the tenth carried out by the Trump administration against suspected drug traffickers since early September. Most took place off South America in the Caribbean, but on October 21 and 22 she carried out strikes in the Pacific Ocean.
Members of the US Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, have expressed concerns about the legality of the strikes and the president’s power to order them.
On September 10, 25 Democratic U.S. senators wrote to the White House and claimed that the administration had struck a ship days earlier “without evidence that the individuals on board the vessel and its cargo posed a threat to the United States.”
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, a Republican, argued that such strikes required congressional approval.
Trump said he had the legal authority to order the strikes and designated Tren de Aragua a terrorist organization.
“We are allowed to do this, and if we do it [it] by land, we could go back to Congress,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio added that “if people want to stop seeing drug boats explode, they should stop sending drugs to the United States.”
The six deaths in the operation announced by Hegseth on Friday bring the total number of people killed in US strikes to at least 43.
