By Shelby Holliday and Lara Seligman

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon said it is sending the Navy's most advanced aircraft carrier to the Caribbean in a major escalation of the Trump administration's military campaign to target drug smugglers and threaten governments in Latin America.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier, which is currently deployed in the Mediterranean, to the Caribbean, bringing dozens more fighter and surveillance aircraft, along with other Navy warships that accompany a carrier, officials said.

"In support of the President's directive to dismantle Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) and counter narco-terrorism in defense of the Homeland, the Secretary of War has directed the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group and embarked carrier air wing to the U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) area of responsibility $(AOR)$," Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a post on social media.

The dispatch of a carrier is the strongest sign yet that the Trump administration envisions expanding the airstrikes that so far have been limited to striking small vessels to other targets on land in what officials have said is an effort to destroy drug-smuggling operations and destabilize Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro's government.

The Pentagon was already carrying out a large buildup of combat power in the region. A carrier in the region would enable commanders to carry out airstrikes at a higher tempo and shorten the distance U.S. planes would have to fly to reach targets on land.

Write to Shelby Holliday at shelby.holliday@wsj.com and Lara Seligman at lara.seligman@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 24, 2025 12:48 ET (16:48 GMT)

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