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U.S. Aircraft Strike Group Heading To Caribbean As Tensions With Venezuela Escalate

United States Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, has directed an aircraft carrier strike group to move to the Caribbean to support President Donald Trump’s effort to dismantle “Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) and counter narco-terrorism in defense of the Homeland.” This was announced on Friday (24th October, 2025) in a post on X by Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell, who said 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).”

Parnell added, “The enhanced U.S. force presence in the USSOUTHCOM AOR will bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States homeland and our security in the Western Hemisphere. These forces will enhance and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking and degrade and dismantle TCOs.”

The Gerald R. Ford is the U.S. Navy’s largest aircraft carrier and is currently stationed in the Mediterranean with three (3) destroyers, according to two (2) U.S. officials. They have not left that region, but once they do, the transit will take about one (1) week to get on station in the Caribbean, the officials said.

The military’s deployment of the carrier strike group in the Caribbean is seen not only as a notable escalation of U.S. policy in the region, but a show of presence or force, as President Trump has promised to target more cartel members and has firmly said these actions do not require congressional approval.

This deployment will nearly double the number of U.S. forces afloat in the area as part of the counter-drug mission. The U.S. has eight (8) surface ships there now, plus a nuclear-powered submarine, which adds up to about 6,000 sailors and marines in the region. The Ford Carrier Strike Group will add between 4,500 and 5,000 more sailors and marines to the mission.

The officials said this deployment is also about sending a message to drug cartels that the U.S. military can move a huge presence to the area quickly.

The U.S. has said it has conducted ten (10) strikes on drug-carrying boats since early September, killing forty-three (43) people so far. Eight (8) strikes have been carried out in the Caribbean Sea and two (2) in the Eastern Pacific.

Speaking at a Press Conference at the White House last week, Trump said, “Every boat that we knock out we save 25,000 American lives, so every time you see a boat and you feel badly you say, ‘Wow, that’s rough.’ It is rough, but if you lose three (3) people and save 25,000 people.”

During a roundtable event with Cabinet Secretaries at the White House on Thursday (23rd October, 2025), Trump and Hegseth each touted the success of the recent strikes, with Hegseth promising more.

“We will find you, we will map your networks, we will hunt you down, and we will kill you,” Hegseth said at the event. “And you’ve seen that evidence in the maritime domain, whether it’s in the Caribbean or in the Pacific with the last two (2) strikes. We know exactly who these people are. We know what networks they work with, what foreign terrorist organizations they’re a part of; we know where they’re going, where they originated from, what they’re carrying.”

Trump also spoke about the strikes on vessels, explaining why his administration is not just capturing the alleged drug traffickers on board and seizing the product they are carrying. “But we’ve been capturing these boats for years, and they get back into the system, they do it again and again and again, and they don’t fear that, they have no fear,” he told reporters.

Asked whether Trump would go to Congress to ask for a declaration of war to authorize the ongoing strikes against boats, the President declined to do so. “Well, I don’t think we’re going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war,” he said. “I think we’re just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country.”

“We’re going to kill them,” Trump added. “They’re going to be, like, dead.”

More on this as it becomes available.

This is a developing story - refresh this page for updates.

[Source: NBC News] 
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