In a dramatic pivot of naval power, President Donald Trump has ordered the US Navy’s most advanced carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, to South America to back a hard-line campaign against drug cartels, a move that will leave no US carriers in the Mediterranean or Middle Eastern waters at a time of renewed tensions in Gaza and lingering threats from Iran and Houthi forces.
Aircraft carriers are loud, unmistakable signals of American reach and intent: thousands of sailors, dozens of combat aircraft and the kind of firepower that reshapes regional calculations. Shifting the Ford to the Western Hemisphere leaves the US with only one carrier deployed worldwide, an unusual posture that some analysts say may leave gaps should trouble flare in Europe or the Middle East.
A new focus on the Western Hemisphere and bigger risks overseas
The redeployment underscores the Trump administration’s clear priority: choke the flow of drugs into the United States. The Ford’s arrival is accompanied by a substantial build-up of ships, aircraft and personnel in waters near Venezuela as Washington steps up strikes on vessels alleged to be carrying narcotics. Trump himself, speaking from the carrier USS George Washington in Japan, framed the operations bluntly: the US will “stop the drugs coming in by land,” after stepping up attacks at sea.
But critics warn of trade-offs. Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, notes how scarce carriers are, typically only three of the 11 are at sea at any one time and said there will be mounting pressure to redeploy the Ford if a crisis erupts. “You can imagine peace negotiations collapsing in the eastern Mediterranean, or something happening with Iran,” he warned.
The timing is awkward. The US was recently involved in strikes against Iranian positions in June and has conducted intense operations against Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the Red Sea. Now, with Israeli-Hamas ceasefire talks fragile and strikes in Gaza escalating, the absence of a carrier in the region presents a clear strategic gap.
A mixed carrier picture
Other carriers are not exactly easing the strain. The USS Nimitz is en route home from the South China Sea to be decommissioned and has recently suffered the loss of a fighter and a helicopter in separate crashes under investigation. The USS Theodore Roosevelt is not currently deployed, practising off the Californian coast. That leaves the US unusually light on its most visible instrument of maritime power.
Is regime change on the cards?
The force build-up around Venezuela, the Ford strike group plus several destroyers, amphibious ships and a submarine capable of launching cruise missiles, has prompted speculation that the administration could be preparing to topple President Nicolás Maduro. Washington has carried out at least 13 strikes on vessels it says were transporting drugs, which the Pentagon says have killed dozens.
Officials from the administration, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, describe the operation as an anti-drug effort and accuse Maduro’s government of complicity in the narcotics trade. Maduro, predictably, accuses the US of inventing a pretext for aggression, calling Washington’s narrative “fabricated” and “criminal.”
Experts caution that US forces in the region are not large enough to mount a full invasion, but they could help force Maduro out, and that, some warn, risks plunging Venezuela into prolonged chaos. Geoff Ramsey of the Atlantic Council says a rapid collapse of Maduro’s rule could result in a “Libya-style meltdown” lasting years.
Political and legal questions at home
Inside the US, lawmakers have raised alarms about the president ordering military action without clear congressional authorisation or public detail about the strikes. Supporters like Senator Lindsey Graham argue the president already has sufficient authority and openly suggested that land strikes in Venezuela are a real possibility. “We’re not going to sit on the sidelines and watch boats full of drugs come to our country,” Graham told CBS’s Face the Nation, urging harsher action.
What this means
Washington has traded a show of force in the Middle East and Europe for a concentrated, costly effort in Latin America. That reallocation may deal a blow to drug-smuggling networks but it also leaves thorny gaps in the US posture at a time when the eastern Mediterranean, Iran and proxy conflicts are tinderboxes. The Ford’s presence in South America will bolster operations there, but could force difficult decisions if, or when a crisis in the Atlantic, Mediterranean or Persian Gulf demands a fast, unmistakable American naval response.
