Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the deployment of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, the Navy’s most modern and technologically advanced carrier, along with its accompanying warships and attack planes to waters off Latin America, marking a dramatic escalation of U.S. military might in the region.
By adding the USS Gerald R. Ford to the existing U.S. forces, the naval strike group in the Caribbean becomes an exceptionally powerful force. The Ford carries about 5,000 sailors and more than 75 attack, surveillance, and support aircraft, joining roughly 10,000 American troops already deployed to the region since late August.
President Trump’s hardline stance and the deployment of U.S. military assets to curb narcotrafficking have ruffled feathers across Central and South America. Trump and Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro are already locked in a war of words, with Maduro mobilizing millions of civilians into the Bolivarian Militia to prepare for what he claims is a potential U.S. invasion. Meanwhile, Colombia, the world’s largest cocaine exporter, has also voiced outrage, though its response so far has been verbal rather than military.
Tensions between President Trump and Colombian President Gustavo Petro have intensified not only over U.S. counter-narcotics operations, but also Washington’s decision to cut aid and to impose sanctions. On October 24, 2025, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Petro, his wife, one of his sons, and Interior Minister Armando Benedetti, who also served as Petro’s former campaign chief, for alleged drug trafficking, placing them on the Specially Designated Nationals list. Days earlier, Trump accused Petro of being an “illegal drug leader,” citing record cocaine production.
On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt made clear that Trump has no interest in de-escalation, calling Petro an “unhinged leader” and stating, “I don’t think the president, frankly, is interested in that at this point.” Trump himself warned that Colombia is ‘doing very poorly’ and threatened, “he better watch it or we’ll take very serious action against him and his country. What he has led his country into is a death trap.”
Petro has responded by threatening to sue Trump in U.S. court, writing that he would “defend myself judicially with American lawyers in the American justice system’ against what he called ‘slanders,” adding, “I will always stand against genocides and murders by those in power in the Caribbean.”
The dispute has deepened over a series of U.S. military strikes on suspected narco-vessels in international waters. The Trump administration has conducted 10 strikes over the past two months, with at least 43 people killed. The most recent overnight operation killed six alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang. The U.S. campaign has expanded beyond the Caribbean to the Pacific Ocean, where the DEA estimates the vast majority of cocaine bound for U.S. cities actually passes. On Wednesday, U.S. forces conducted two strikes in Pacific waters, the first in that region, killing five people total.
A broad range of outside legal specialists have said that Trump and Hegseth have been giving illegal orders to the military because it is forbidden under domestic and international law to deliberately target civilians who are not directly participating in hostilities, even if they are suspected criminals.
The Trump administration has asserted the attacks are lawful because Trump has “determined” that drug trafficking by cartels constitutes an armed attack on the United States.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio described U.S. operations as targeting “narcoterrorists” and called the cartels “well-funded, dangerous, violent” organizations that are “the Al-Qaida of the Western Hemisphere.” He said the traffickers use Venezuelan territory with the cooperation of the Maduro regime and that vetting of strikes and seizures is based on long-term tracking: “every one of these strikes involves boats and shipments that were tracked from the very beginning.”
Secretary of War Hegseth vowed the strikes would ‘continue, day after day,’ calling the targets ‘narco-terrorists bringing death and destruction to our cities.’ Rubio stressed the United States works with regional partners, from Mexico and Colombia to Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala and Panama, and that operations go through a “very rigorous process,”
Rubio said that Colombia remains a key U.S. partner in counter-narcotics efforts, noting that “the military and their police are still very pro-American.” However, he criticized Colombia’s current president, calling him “a lunatic” and “not well,” and said the leader is deeply unpopular at home.
Colombia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mauricio Jaramillo condemned the strikes as “disproportionate and outside international law,’ saying those aboard had ‘no possibility to defend themselves’ and that the strikes were ‘like applying the death penalty in a territory that is not yours.” In an exclusive interview with CBS News, Petro, who was himself a former insurgent, called the missile strikes “war crimes” and said Colombia receives no warning about them.
Pedro pointed out, “We don’t even know where they’re going to happen. Nothing. We don’t know if they had or didn’t have cocaine.” He argued that those killed were not cartel leaders but workers, saying “killing the business” workers is easy but ineffective. “If you want to be effective, you have to capture the bosses of the business,” he said, urging the U.S. to target major shipments instead.
Petro issued a veiled warning about potential consequences of U.S. ground operations, noting his own insurgent past: “Anyone who reads the history of Colombia in two centuries will know that when farmers are attacked, they head up to hide in the mountains and they take up arms. It’s better to talk instead.” Despite the tensions, Petro said he would welcome Trump to his presidential palace for dialogue, while asserting his government could fill any funding gaps if U.S. aid is cut and dismissing tariff threats.
The Trump administration is also considering options for land strikes in Venezuela and trying to use force to remove Maduro, with proponents including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. Military officials said announcing the carrier deployment was one more step in the escalating pressure campaign against the Venezuelan leader. The escalating dispute with Colombia follows a series of prior clashes, including Petro’s rejection of U.S. deportation flights and his calls for American troops to defy Trump’s orders.