The US now has about 15,000 troops in the area where tensions have escalated since the boat strikes began in September.
White House officials have sought to walk back President Donald Trump’s repeated threats against Venezuela in recent days — even as the Department of Defense has continue to strike boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific — but officials in the South American country on Tuesday took the arrival of a US aircraft carrier in the region seriously despite the administration’s claims that it won’t target Venezuela directly.
As the USS Gerald R. Ford entered waters near Latin America, accompanied by three warships, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López said Venezuela’s entire military arsenal had been placed on “full operational readiness,” with President Nicolás Maduro ordering the deployment of nearly 200,000 soldiers.
The government also approved the “massive deployment of ground, aerial, naval, riverine, and missile forces,” López announced.
Venezuela’s military deployment comes weeks after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the Ford to relocate from Europe to Latin America following several military strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific that the Trump administration has claimed are meant to stop drug trafficking out of Venezuela — despite the fact that US intelligence agencies and United Nations experts agree that the country plays virtually no role in the trafficking of fentanyl, the top cause of drug overdoses in the US.
