Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the USS Gerald R Ford aircraft carrier, which can carry up to 90 aircraft, to move from the Mediterranean on Friday. The US has been increasing its military presence in the Caribbean in recent weeks, sending other warships, a nuclear submarine as well as F-35 aircraft in what it says is a campaign to target drug traffickers.

It has carried out ten airstrikes on boats it says belong to traffickers, including one on Friday when Hegseth said "six male narco-terrorists" had been killed. That operation took place in the Caribbean Sea, against a ship, Hegseth said belonged to the Tren de Aragua criminal organisation.

The strikes have drawn condemnation in the region and experts have questioned their legality. The Trump administration says it is conducting a war on drug trafficking, but it has also been accused by experts and members of Congress of launching an intimidation campaign that seeks to destabilise the government of Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro.

Maduro is a longtime foe of Trump, and the US president has accused him of being the leader of a drug-trafficking organisation, which he denies. "This is about regime change. They're probably not going to invade, the hope is this is about signalling," Dr Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at the Chatham House think tank, told the BBC.

He argued the military build-up is intended to "strike fear" in the hearts of the Venezuelan military and Maduro's inner circle so that they move against him. In its yesterday announcement, the Pentagon said the USS Gerald R Ford carrier would deploy to the US Southern Command area of responsibility, which includes Central America and South America as well as the Caribbean. The additional forces "will enhance and augment existing capabilities to disrupt narcotics trafficking and degrade and dismantle TCOs", or transnational criminal organisations, spokesman Sean Parnell said. (BBC)