Ceiba, Puerto Rico – December 1, 2025 – The turquoise waters of the Caribbean, long a haven for tourists and trade routes, now bristle with the hum of jet engines and the distant rumble of warships. More than 10 U.S. Navy vessels, spearheaded by the colossal USS Gerald R. Ford – the world’s largest aircraft carrier – have converged on the region, casting a formidable silhouette against the horizon. This unprecedented deployment, framed by the Trump administration as a bulwark against narcotics flooding into American streets, has ignited fears of broader conflict with Venezuela, whose socialist leader, Nicolás Maduro, stands accused of orchestrating a narco-state operations. With approximately 15,000 U.S. troops now arrayed across ships and bases, including a reactivated Marine Expeditionary Unit poised for amphibious operations, the stakes could not be higher. As tensions simmer, the operation underscores a pivotal shift in U.S. foreign policy: treating drug cartels not merely as criminals, but as existential threats warranting lethal military force.
The buildup, codenamed Operation Southern Spear, began in earnest this past August when President Donald Trump, fulfilling a core campaign pledge, redirected major naval assets from routine global patrols to aggressive interdiction missions in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. By late November, the flotilla had grown to include guided-missile destroyers USS Gravely and USS Stockdale, the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima, and the Ticonderoga-class cruisers USS Lake Erie and USS Gettysburg. Leading the force is the 100,000-ton USS Gerald R. Ford, commissioned in 2017 at a cost exceeding $13 billion. The carrier arrived in the Caribbean on November 16 carrying Carrier Air Wing 8 — nine squadrons with more than 70 aircraft, including F/A-18E/F Super Hornets from naval air stations in Virginia, Florida, and Washington state. These warplanes give the Ford the ability to project overwhelming air power hundreds of miles in every direction.
Complementing the carrier are up to 2,200 Marines of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, embarked aboard the USS Iwo Jima and accompanying amphibious ships such as USS San Antonio and USS Fort Lauderdale. Drawn from Camp Lejeune and Marine Corps Air Station New River in North Carolina, this force is fully equipped for rapid beach assaults, vertical envelopment by helicopter, and sustained inland operations. The Iwo Jima alone can launch six AV-8B Harrier II attack jets, dozens of helicopters, and landing craft carrying hundreds of Marines in a single wave. When combined with personnel already stationed at regional bases, the total U.S. troop presence in the Caribbean theater now stands at roughly 15,000 — the largest since the 1989 invasion of Panama.
The stated mission is drugs. President Trump has repeatedly described the opioid crisis — which killed more than 100,000 Americans last year — as a deliberate “attack on the homeland” worse than any war in U.S. history. On November 29, Secretary of the Navy John Phelan told Fox News, “The military’s job is to defend the homeland. That’s exactly what we’re doing, and we’re using our best assets to defend the homeland. Drugs kill more Americans than we’ve ever lost in wars. So I think at the end of the day, the president has correctly identified this as an attack on the country, which it is.” Phelan and the White House accuse Nicolás Maduro of turning Venezuela into a safe haven and launchpad for narco-trafficking networks that ship hundreds of tons of cocaine northward each year.
Since early September, when President Trump personally authorized the first lethal strike — a Hellfire missile from a drone that sank a Venezuelan go-fast boat and killed 11 alleged traffickers — U.S. forces have conducted at least 21 kinetic interdictions across the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing more than 80 people and taking only two alive. Pentagon-released footage shows fiery explosions in international waters targeting vessels linked to the Tren de Aragua gang and the so-called Cartel of the Suns, a trafficking network allegedly run by senior Venezuelan military officers loyal to Maduro.
Puerto Rico has become the central hub of the operation. The long-dormant Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Ceiba, closed in 2004, was officially reopened on September 13. Within weeks, F-35B Lightning II stealth fighters, MQ-9 Reaper drones, and P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft were operating from its 11,000-foot runway. Satellite photos show new tent cities, refueling points, and cargo aircraft delivering supplies around the clock. Local officials welcome the economic infusion, but many residents complain of low-altitude jet noise and express anxiety about becoming a staging ground for war.
Maduro has responded with fury and mobilization. Venezuela has placed 200,000 troops and pro-regime militias on high alert along its Caribbean coast, conducted highly publicized anti-air and anti-ship drills, and threatened to treat any incursion as an act of war. Russian-supplied S-300 air-defense batteries protect key installations, while state television broadcasts footage of soldiers practicing shoot-downs of F-35s and torpedo attacks on U.S. destroyers. Despite the bluster, most defense analysts describe Venezuela’s conventional forces as poorly maintained, underfed, and prone to desertion.
Beneath the military posturing lie deeper strategic calculations. Trump reinstated a $50 million bounty on Maduro for narcoterrorism, has spoken openly about “all options” for regime change, and quietly authorized CIA sabotage operations against ports and airfields allegedly used by the Cartel of the Suns. Venezuela’s enormous oil reserves — the largest proven deposits on Earth — add another layer of motive. Regional leaders from Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico have called for restraint, while Russia, China, Iran, and Cuba have issued strongly worded statements but stopped short of concrete support for Caracas.
During a separate appearance on “My View with Lara Trump,” Secretary Phelan tied the Caribbean deployment to the president’s broader industrial agenda: “The president is very focused on shipbuilding. He has been on me about it for a long time and continues to stay after me, which is great, because he’s committed to it and it’s really important. We hollowed out our manufacturing base in this country… We spent the last 10 years teaching people how to code. We’re gonna spend the next 10 years teaching [people] how to use their hands, because those are going to be the important skills.”
As December begins, the Caribbean remains on edge. Social media posts proclaiming “11 US warships and 15,000 troops now in Caribbean amid escalating Venezuela tensions” have gone viral. Nicolás Maduro vows a “people’s war” if attacked, while President Trump, in a recent television interview, warned that “Maduro’s days are numbered.” With stealth jets overhead, submarines below, and Marines ready to storm ashore, the region waits to see whether Washington’s war on drugs will remain at sea — or spill onto Venezuelan soil.
