The United States has intensified its military presence in the Caribbean after the arrival of its most advanced aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, in what officials continue to describe as a counterdrug mission.
The deployment has prompted renewed questions about the Trump administration’s broader intentions in South America as it carries out lethal strikes on boats accused of transporting narcotics.
The Navy confirmed the carrier’s arrival through the Anegada Passage near the British Virgin Islands on Sunday morning. Its deployment forms the final piece of Operation Southern Spear, now comprising nearly a dozen Navy vessels and about twelve thousand sailors and Marines.
Rear Admiral Paul Lanzilotta said the strike group will add weight to an already significant fleet aimed at confronting what he called narco terrorism in the Western Hemisphere.
Admiral Alvin Holsey, who commands operations across the Caribbean and Latin America, said the buildup reflects Washington’s resolve to protect the American homeland.
Holsey is set to retire next month after a short tenure.
Since September, United States forces have conducted at least twenty attacks that have killed more than eighty people on small vessels identified as drug traffickers. The administration has not provided independent evidence to support its claims that those targeted were linked to narcoterrorism. President Trump has suggested the military campaign could expand onto land.
The deployment comes alongside joint training exercises in Trinidad and Tobago. The island nation, located just seven miles from Venezuela, confirmed that Marines from the Twenty Second Expeditionary Unit are conducting week long drills aimed at curbing violent crime and drug trafficking. The exercises follow another round earlier this month.
Venezuela’s government has dismissed the growing presence of American forces as an act of aggression. Analysts say the Ford’s arrival serves less as a tool for counter narcotics and more as a pointed message to President Nicolas Maduro, who faces narcoterrorism charges in the United States and remains under heavy political pressure from Washington.
