Venezuela has ordered a massive military mobilization after the arrival of a U.S. aircraft carrier strike group in the Caribbean, escalating tensions amid President Donald Trump’s expanded war on drug trafficking in the region.
Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López announced Monday that “almost 200,000” troops had been placed on full operational readiness. He said the mobilization includes “ground, aerial, naval, riverine, and missile forces” deployed across the country and along its coastline. The order was reported by the Washington Examiner.
The move came as the USS Gerald R. Ford, the Navy’s largest and most advanced aircraft carrier, arrived in Caribbean waters with its escort ships. U.S. officials said the deployment is part of a “maritime security and counter-narcotics mission” aimed at drug smuggling routes linked to Venezuela and other parts of South America.
The deployment marks the most significant U.S. naval presence in the Caribbean in decades and reflects a new phase of Washington’s campaign against narcotics trafficking.
In recent months, the Trump administration has authorized direct military strikes on suspected smuggling vessels operating in international waters. At least 11 people were killed in one strike off Venezuela’s coast in September, according to The Aviationist, in what analysts called the first publicly confirmed lethal U.S. military action in the region since the 1989 invasion of Panama.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies said the Pentagon has formally designated the campaign as a “non-international armed conflict” with transnational criminal groups. A classified notification sent to Congress in early October established a legal basis for using military force against cartel networks operating in the Caribbean and northern South America.
U.S. officials have described the change as part of a broader effort to cut off the flow of cocaine through maritime corridors that originate along Venezuela’s northern coast. The route is one of the main transit paths for narcotics bound for Central America, Mexico, and the United States, according to The Economist and the Council of the Americas.
American prosecutors have accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and several of his senior aides of leading a “narcoterrorism conspiracy” to smuggle cocaine into the United States. Maduro’s government has denied the charges and accused Washington of seeking to justify “a new imperialist aggression.”
Padrino said the presence of the Gerald R. Ford and its strike group represented “a direct threat to national sovereignty” and vowed Venezuela would respond to any provocation. Venezuelan state television showed images of tanks, aircraft, and missile batteries being deployed to coastal regions.
Caribbean governments have expressed alarm at the rising tension. A statement issued last week by the Caribbean Community urged both sides to “exercise restraint and avoid actions that could endanger regional stability.”
Human rights observers have criticized the U.S. strikes as unlawful. A panel of independent U.N. experts said in October that the killings of suspected traffickers “amount to extrajudicial executions” and violate Venezuela’s sovereignty. The Reuters news agency reported that the panel warned the operations showed “a disregard for international humanitarian standards.”
U.S. defense officials have defended the campaign as a necessary response to what they describe as narco-traffickers waging war on the American public through the drug trade. A Pentagon spokesman told The Washington Post the operations are “targeted, legal, and designed to save lives by disrupting the networks flooding the United States with cocaine.”
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