By Michael R. Gordon
The U.S. Navy's largest aircraft carrier arrived in waters near Latin America on Tuesday, expanding the American military's buildup as the Trump administration seeks to ratchet up the pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
President Trump has expressed reservations about taking military action against Venezuela, The Wall Street Journal reported last week.
But the arrival of the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group, with several destroyers equipped with Tomahawk missiles, will boost the U.S. military's capability to attack targets in the country, including Venezuela's air defenses.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the carrier strike group "will enhance and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking and degrade and dismantle Transnational Criminal Organizations."
The strike group's firepower, however, goes beyond what it is required to strike the small boats that the Trump administration says are being used to smuggle drugs.
To date, the U.S. has carried out 19 strikes against boats in the Caribbean and in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Those attacks have killed 76 people, according to the administration's account, and spurred a legal debate about whether the strikes are legal.
In the latest strikes, on Sunday, six men were killed in two attacks on boats in the eastern Pacific, according to Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary. Hegseth said, without providing evidence, that both boats were known by U.S. intelligence to be associated with illicit drug smuggling and were carrying drugs at the time of the strikes.
While the Trump administration says it is carrying out legitimate attacks against drug gangs with which the U.S. is engaged in armed conflict, some lawmakers and former American officials say the strikes were "nonjudicial killings" of civilians who posed no immediate threat to the U.S.
Trump has talked publicly at times about broadening the military operation to include targets on land. Sending mixed signals, he has also said that he isn't considering ordering attacks inside Venezuela.
The warplanes on the Ford include F/A-18 fighters that can strike targets on land and Growler electronic warfare planes that can attack and jam enemy radars and air defenses. In addition to its two guided-missile destroyers the USS Bainbridge and the USS Mahan, the Ford strike group includes the USS Winston S. Churchill, an air and missile defense command ship.
The Ford strike group had been operating in the Adriatic Sea when it was ordered on Oct. 24 to head for the Caribbean. That move left the Navy without a carrier in regions overseen by the U.S. European Command and the U.S. Central Command, which directs American forces in the Middle East.
The Ford strike group will add to the U.S. forces that have already been amassed in the Caribbean region, including an amphibious ready group and F-35Bs and MQ-9s in Puerto Rico. AC-130 gunships have also been deployed in Puerto Rico and El Salvador, according to public photos.
Write to Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 11, 2025 16:58 ET (21:58 GMT)
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