US aircraft carrier nears Latin America as Venezuela tensions simmer

The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier has arrived in waters near Latin America, joining a massive naval buildup that has fueled speculation the Trump administration intends to dramatically escalate its deadly counternarcotics campaign there, possibly through direct attacks on Venezuela.

The Ford and its three accompanying warships arrived in the region Tuesday, local time, the Navy said in a news release. The ships were not yet in the Caribbean Sea but had crossed into the larger US Southern Command area of operations, which includes part of the Atlantic Ocean and drug-smuggling routes in the Pacific.

“These forces will enhance and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking and degrade and dismantle transnational criminal organizations,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement.

But an aircraft carrier is not optimally suited for counter-drug operations. It’s a strategic asset, and the United States uses its fleet of 11 of them - many of which are in scheduled maintenance and not available to sail at any given time - for power projection and deterrence in its top-tier security concerns, notably countering China in the Indo Pacific and maintaining a deterrent presence in the Middle East, said Mark Cancian, a senior defence adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“The only reason to move it there is to use it against Venezuela,” Mr Cancian said. Its arrival in the region means “the shot clock has started. Because this is not an asset they can just keep there indefinitely. They have to use it or move it. And moving it would mean they are standing down” from a potential attack on Venezuela, Cancian said.

The Pentagon announced October 24 that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered the Ford to relocate from Europe. It has been deployed since June from its home port in Virginia.

The Ford’s arrival pushes the number of US warships in the region past a dozen - a stunning military presence for a region that historically has seen only one or two Navy vessels assisting the US Coast Guard on routine drug-interdiction missions.

In a dramatic departure from precedent, President Donald Trump has upended that approach. Since early September, his administration has directed the killing of at least 75 people in a violent campaign he and others say is necessary to halt the flow of illicit drugs destined for the United States.

The massive build-up has also drawn questions from lawmakers on cost.

Experts on the law of war contend that the Trump administration’s approach is illegal because the small vessels being targeted are carrying civilians allegedly involved in the commercial sale of drugs, not armed hostilities against the US or its citizens.

To date, the 19 military strikes disclosed by the Trump administration have destroyed small speedboats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. The President has talked publicly, however, about expanding the campaign to include targets on land.

Mr Trump has been particularly fixated on Venezuela and its leader, Nicolás Maduro, accusing him of sending violent criminals and drugs to the US - and fuelling speculation that he intends to forcibly remove Mr Maduro from power. Mr Trump has said publicly that Mr Maduro’s days as president are “numbered.”

Democrats, appalled by the killings, have pushed unsuccessfully for Congress to assert its war-declaration authorities. Separate legislative efforts in the Senate - one aimed at halting the boat strikes and another at blocking Mr Trump from starting a war in Venezuela - were rejected by a majority of Republicans.

As senators prepared to vote last week on the measure focused on Venezuela, administration officials made a concerted push to reassure potential GOP defectors - walking back Mr Trump’s repeated threats of escalation and sharing with them more details about its aggressive activities to disrupt the Latin American drug trade.

Crucially, it appears, Mr Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio provided a classified briefing for select members of Congress where they indicated the administration is not currently preparing to target Venezuela directly and didn’t have a proper legal argument for doing so, people familiar with the meeting told The Washington Post. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the meeting.

The Ford, which is the Navy’s most modern and largest carrier, has 4,000 sailors on board. It is accompanied by the destroyers USS Bainbridge, USS Mahan and USS Winston S. Churchill.

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