Today, Morgan, Jamil, Les, and Jess discuss the Trump administration’s deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group to the Caribbean as part of its intensified campaign against Latin American drug cartels. The move dramatically expands U.S. presence in the U.S. Southern Command’s area of operations—with destroyers, F-35 fighters, and Reaper drones joining the effort—and has drawn a fierce response from Venezuela’s Maduro regime, which launched its own military exercises in protest.

What’s Washington’s real objective here, countering narcotics networks or signaling to Caracas? And if most fentanyl traffics through land routes via Mexico, not by sea, is this deployment really about fighting the drug trade, or about projecting power closer to Venezuela’s shores? As regional partners like Colombia and the UK distance themselves from the mission, is this bold strategy a show of deterrence—or a costly display of overkill?

Check out this source that helped shape our fellows’ discussion: 

@morganlroach

@lestermunson

@nottvjessjones

@jamil_n_jaffer

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