Why Is the U.S. Sending an Entire Carrier Strike Group to Venezuela?
Officially it’s about drug traffickers. In reality, Trump is encircling a Marxist dictatorship and Chinese-Russian base — and reasserting American power in the Caribbean Basin.
by Rod D. Martin
October 29, 2025
Why did the United States just redeploy one of its most powerful military formations — a full carrier strike group — to the coast of Venezuela?
The White House insists it’s about narcotics interdiction, and that’s true so far as it goes. But Washington doesn’t send the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s most advanced aircraft carrier, all the way across the Atlantic to chase drug boats.
Venezuela has become an enormous thorn in America’s side. Under Hugo Chavez it was “Cuba with oil”, bankrolling the Castros, buying Danny Ortega’s way back into power in Nicaragua, and advancing totalitarianism wherever it could. But like a scene out of Atlas Shrugged, socialist mismanagement ruined the oil industry, despite Venezuela’s having the world’s largest proved reserves. His successor, Nicolás Maduro, therefore shifted gears, turning the country he illegitimately rules into Cuba with drugs. He also turned Venezuela into a Russian, and more significantly, Chinese base.
Gotta keep the cash flowing, don’t you know. Oh, and advance the revolution.
As is almost always the case with Donald Trump, there is more to this strategem than meets the eye. Trump believes in giving himself multiple ways to win. Maduro’s socialist dictatorship-turned-narcostate is about to find out just how many ways that is.
The Arsenal Off Venezuela’s Coast
The numbers are eye-popping. The U.S. now fields its largest Caribbean naval presence in a generation. It’s not there on vacation.
Forces include: