US Navy Has No Carrier Near Venezuela as Caribbean Strikes Pass 220 Deaths

CARIBBEAN · SECURITY

No United States aircraft carrier has been reported in the Caribbean since June, even as American forces keep striking boats off Venezuela. The carrier that was there sailed for the Middle East in February, and none has replaced it.

That leaves the American campaign against drug boats in the Caribbean running without its heaviest ship. The war with Iran has pulled the Navy’s carriers to the Gulf and kept them there.

The USS Gerald R Ford, which spent three months in the Caribbean before sailing for the Middle East in February (Photo: U.S. Navy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

What the Reports Say

A report that the Pentagon is moving an aircraft carrier out of the Caribbean and into the Middle East has been widely republished. The original is a Reuters dispatch dated 13 February 2026, carried since by energy and shipping websites.

Reuters named two American officials and identified the ship as the USS Gerald R Ford. It said the carrier would take at least a week to reach the Middle East and would join the USS Abraham Lincoln.

The New York Times had reported the decision a day earlier, on 12 February. USNI News, the journal of the United States Naval Institute, said an American official confirmed it.

Where the Carrier Went

The Ford had arrived in the Caribbean in November 2025, after deploying in June of that year. By the time it left, it had been at sea for about eight months.

It was on station in early January, when American forces captured Nicolás Maduro in an overnight raid in Caracas. USNI News noted that an extended deployment risked breaking the post-Vietnam record of 294 days.

The new orders came before the fighting with Iran started at the end of February. The USS Abraham Lincoln had gone to the Middle East in January, and the Ford made a second carrier there.

The Ford left the Middle East in early May and reached Norfolk on 16 May, after 326 days at sea. That was the longest American carrier deployment since the Cold War ended, and the ship entered a shipyard in July.

What Replaced It

Southern Command, the American military headquarters for Latin America, did get another carrier later. The USS Nimitz reached the Caribbean on 20 May, with Carrier Air Wing 17, the destroyer USS Gridley and the oiler USNS Patuxent.

That visit was short. The Nimitz ended its Southern Seas deployment on 17 June, after port calls in Brazil, Chile, Jamaica and Panama.

Rear Admiral Carlos Sardiello, who commands United States Naval Forces Southern Command, said the strike group had worked with 14 countries. No American aircraft carrier has been reported in the Caribbean since.

The Campaign That Continues

The strikes on boats have not stopped. Southern Command said a strike on 20 September killed four people on a vessel it described as carrying drugs, the Hill reported.

The campaign began on 2 September 2025 and was named Operation Southern Spear by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth that November. Human Rights Watch counts 69 strikes and 227 people killed to date.

Counts differ because they use different cut-off dates and methods. CBC put the toll at at least 231 deaths across 69 strikes on 21 September.

A United Nations report counted 68 vessels struck and at least 223 people killed to August. Southern Command has said it cannot give a public accounting of every strike and interdiction.

The Argument Over Legality

Washington says the strikes are self-defence against armed groups it has designated as terrorist organisations. It relies on an opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel that it has not published.

Ben Saul, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, disagrees. He found that drug trafficking is not an armed attack, so the self-defence claim does not hold.

Human Rights Watch calls the campaign a year of extrajudicial killings at sea. Southern Command says its task is to counter illicit activities and malign actors in the Western Hemisphere.

The administration has not identified everyone killed in the strikes. Trinidad and Tobago has supported the operations, while other governments in the Caribbean Community bloc have voiced concern.

What to Watch

The first thing to watch is whether the Pentagon sends another carrier south. The Navy has eleven, and maintenance and training usually leave only about three at sea at once.

The second is the war with Iran, which is holding the Navy’s heavy ships in the Gulf. Iran offered this week to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days, and Washington has not accepted.

The third is the pace of the boat strikes, which slowed through 2026. Eleven were recorded in December 2025 alone, against roughly five a month over the first half of this year.

The fourth is Cuba, where Washington has raised the pressure this month. President Trump told the UN General Assembly that the island’s government would fall.

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