DONALD Trump has sent the world’s biggest aircraft carrier steaming into Latin American waters, and Nicolás Maduro is digging in for a fight.
The USS Gerald R. Ford, carrying more than 4,000 sailors and dozens of strike aircraft, has now entered the US Southern Command zone.
It is the largest US military deployment in the region since the 1989 invasion of Panama.
The move also marks president Trump’s sharpest warning yet to Venezuela’s regime, which is mobilising troops, militias, and missiles for what it calls “prolonged resistance.”
The Pentagon confirmed the Gerald R. Ford strike group’s arrival, describing it as part of a campaign to “detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities” across the Caribbean.
Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said the carrier “will bolster US capacity to disrupt narcotics trafficking and degrade and dismantle transnational criminal organisations.”
Read more on US & Venezuela
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth ordered the deployment under Trump’s directive to “dismantle Transnational Criminal Organizations and counter narco-terrorism in defense of the Homeland.”
The Ford leads a formidable carrier strike group, including guided-missile destroyers, electronic warfare squadrons, and advanced F/A-18 Super Hornet jets.
It can launch and recover aircraft day and night, providing what the Pentagon calls “sustained operations at sea.”
Admiral Alvin Holsey, Commander of U.S. Southern Command, said the move “represents a critical step in reinforcing our resolve to protect the security of the Western Hemisphere and the safety of the American homeland.”
The carrier’s arrival follows Trump’s vow to expand his “war on drugs,” which has already included deadly airstrikes on boats suspected of smuggling cocaine.
“The land is going to be next,” Trump warned recently, before clarifying that Washington was not yet planning strikes inside Venezuela.
Behind the defiant speeches, Maduro’s regime appears to be preparing for a desperate fight.
Internal planning documents and sources cited by Reuters reveal Venezuela is deploying aging Russian weapons and ordering units to disperse and hide if attacked.
Insiders say troops have been ordered to scatter and hide upon the first US strike, using small units to carry out sabotage across more than 280 sites nationwide.
“We wouldn’t last two hours in a conventional war,” one source close to the government admitted.
Another added: “We’re not ready to face one of the world’s most powerful and well-trained armies.”
A second plan to “anarchise” Caracas would unleash chaos in the streets of the Venezuelan caputal.
Intelligence agents and armed loyalists would create disorder to make the country ungovernable for any foreign presence.
Analysts say the strategy reveals the regime’s fear and its willingness to sacrifice civilian stability to cling to power.
Rank-and-file soldiers earn about $100 a month, far below the $500 needed for basic living costs.
Some commanders are said to barter with local farmers to feed their men.
Venezuelan forces rely heavily on outdated Russian hardware.
Their Sukhoi jets, tanks, and helicopters are decades old, and maintenance has stalled for years.
Maduro boasts of having 5,000 Russian-made Igla-S missiles deployed “to the last mountain, the last town, and the last city in the territory.”
But analysts say the real message is deterrence through chaos, not capability.
“The underlying message isn’t actual military capability but deterrence through chaos,” said defense analyst Andrei Serbin Pont.
“The threat that this equipment could end up in the hands of armed groups, guerrillas, or paramilitaries.”
Even with Moscow pledging to assist, few expect Venezuela’s decaying arsenal to alter the balance.
“Next to the U.S. B-2s, they are nothing,” one defence source said.
Trump’s naval presence, meanwhile, dwarfs anything seen in Latin America in decades.
The strike group joins warships, a nuclear-powered submarine, and aircraft already based in Puerto Rico, making them a combined force unmatched since the Cold War.
For Maduro, the picture is grim. His army is short of supplies, his weapons are relics, and his people are starving.
Yet his regime broadcasts images of soldiers saluting under banners of resistance, invoking Bolívar while the world’s most advanced carrier edges closer.
