Venezuela’s Maduro says US ‘fabricating war’ after it deployed huge warship

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has accused the US of “faking a war” after it sent the world's largest warship towards the Caribbean, leading to a major escalation in the region's military build-up.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R Ford, which can carry up to 90 aircraft, to leave the Mediterranean on Friday.

“They are fabricating a new forever war,” Maduro told state media. “They promised that they would never get involved in a war again, and they are fabricating a war.”

The US is increasing its military presence in the Caribbean, sending warships, a nuclear submarine and F-35 jets in what it says is a campaign to crack down on drug traffickers.

He also carried out 10 airstrikes on boats he said belonged to human traffickers, including one on Friday in which Hegseth said “six male narco-terrorists” were killed.

This operation was carried out in the Caribbean against a ship which, according to Hegseth, belonged to the criminal organization Tren de Aragua.

The strikes have drawn condemnation in the region, with experts questioning their legality.

The Trump administration says it is waging a war on drug trafficking, but experts and members of Congress also accuse it of mounting a campaign of intimidation to destabilize Maduro's government.

Maduro is a longtime enemy of Trump and the US president has accused him of being the leader of a drug trafficking organization, which he denies.

“We are talking about regime change. They're probably not going to invade, the hope is that it's about a signal,” Dr Christopher Sabatini, senior fellow for Latin America at the think tank Chatham House, told the BBC.

He said the military buildup was intended to “strike fear” into the hearts of the Venezuelan military and Maduro’s inner circle so that they would oppose him.

In a statement Friday, the Pentagon said the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R Ford will deploy to the U.S. Southern Command area of ​​responsibility, which includes Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean.

The additional forces will “strengthen and complement existing capabilities to disrupt drug trafficking and disrupt and dismantle TCOs,” or transnational criminal organizations, said spokesman Sean Parnell.

Deploying an aircraft carrier will provide the resources to begin striking ground targets. Trump has repeatedly raised the possibility of what he called a “land action” in Venezuela.

“We are, of course, now focusing on land because we have the sea under control,” he said earlier this week.

It goes like this CNN reports Trump is considering attacking cocaine facilities and drug trafficking routes within Venezuela, but a final decision has not yet been made.

The last time the aircraft carrier publicly reported its location was three days ago off the coast of Croatia, in the Adriatic Sea.

Its deployment marks a significant escalation in the US military buildup in the region. There is also likely to be increased tension with Venezuela, whose government has long been accused by Washington of harboring drug traffickers.

An aircraft carrier's large aircraft fleet may include jets, transport and reconnaissance aircraft. Its first long-term deployment took place in 2023.

It is unclear what ships will accompany it as it moves into the region, but it could operate as part of a strike force that would include destroyers carrying missiles and other equipment.

USA carried out a series of strikes on boats in recent weeks in what President Donald Trump has called an effort to curb drug trafficking.

The strike announced Friday was the 10th strike the Trump administration has carried out against alleged drug traffickers since early September. Most of them occurred off the coast of South America, in the Caribbean, but on October 21 and 22 they struck in the Pacific Ocean.

Members of the US Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, have expressed concerns about the legality of the strikes and the president's authority to order them.

On Sept. 10, 25 Democratic U.S. senators wrote to the White House saying the administration had struck the ship days earlier “without evidence that the ship's people and cargo posed a threat to the United States.”

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican, argues that such strikes require congressional approval.

Trump said he had the legal authority to order the strikes and declared Tren de Aragua a terrorist organization.

“We are allowed to do this, and if we do this [it] by land we can go back to Congress,” Trump told White House reporters on Wednesday.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio added that “if people want to stop seeing drug ships blowing up, stop sending drugs to the United States.”

The six deaths in Operation Hegseth, announced Friday, bring the total death toll from US strikes to at least 43.