The most advanced US aircraft carrier has travelled to the Caribbean Sea in what has been interpreted as a show of military power and a possible threat to Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro regime.
The USS Gerald R. Ford and other warships arrived in the area with a new influx of troops and weaponry on Sunday.
It is the latest step in a military build-up that the Donald Trump administration claims is aimed at preventing criminal cartels from smuggling drugs to America.
Since early September, US strikes have killed at least 80 people in 20 attacks on small boats accused of transporting narcotics in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean.
Mr Trump has indicated that military action would expand beyond strikes by sea, saying the US would “stop the drugs coming in by land”.
The US government has released no evidence to support its assertions that those killed in the boats were “narcoterrorists”, however.
The arrival of the USS Gerald R. Ford now rounds off the largest increase in US firepower in the region in generations.
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With its arrival, the “Operation Southern Spear” mission includes nearly a dozen navy ships and about 12,000 sailors and marines.
Rear Admiral Paul Lanzilotta, who commands the strike group, said it will bolster an already large force of American warships to “protect our nation’s security and prosperity against narco-terrorism in the Western Hemisphere”.
Admiral Alvin Holsey, the US commander who oversees the Caribbean and Latin America, said in a statement that the American forces “stand ready to combat the transnational threats that seek to destabilise our region”.
Government officials in Trinidad and Tobago have announced that they have already begun “training exercises” with the US military that are due to run over the next week.
The island is just seven miles from Venezuela at its closest point.
The country’s minister of foreign affairs, Sean Sobers, said the exercises were aimed at tackling violent crime in Trinidad and Tobago, which is frequently used by drug traffickers as a stopover on their journey to Europe or North America.
Venezuela’s government has described the training exercises as an act of aggression.
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They had no immediate comment on Sunday regarding the arrival of the USS Gerald R. Ford.
The US has long used aircraft carriers to pressure and deter aggression by other nations because its warplanes can strike targets deep inside another country.
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Some experts say the Ford is ill-suited to fighting cartels, but it could be an effective instrument of intimidation to push Mr Maduro, who faces charges of narcoterrorism in the US, to step down.
Mr Maduro has said the US government is “fabricating” a war against him.
The US president has justified the attacks on drug boats by saying the country is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels, while claiming the boats are operated by foreign terrorist organisations.
US politicians have pressed Mr Trump for more information on who is being targeted and the legal justification for the boat strikes.
Elizabeth Dickinson, the International Crisis Group’s senior analyst for the Andes region, said: “This is the anchor of what it means to have US military power once again in Latin America.
“And it has raised a lot of anxieties in Venezuela but also throughout the region. I think everyone is watching this with sort of bated breath to see just how willing the US is to really use military force.”
