Overview

• The Iwo Jima amphibious ready group—USS Iwo Jima, USS San Antonio and USS Fort Lauderdale—transited toward the southern Caribbean carrying about 4,500 personnel, including roughly 2,200 Marines, with Pentagon imagery confirming operations near Curaçao.
• U.S. sources report the guided‑missile cruiser USS Lake Erie and nuclear fast‑attack submarine USS Newport News are slated to arrive next week, a movement Venezuela also cited in a formal protest to the U.N.
• Venezuela says it has mobilized 15,000 security forces along the Colombia border and is expanding naval patrols, drone surveillance and the deployment of larger vessels in the Lake Maracaibo, Gulf of Venezuela and territorial waters.
• Washington frames the buildup as an anti‑drug operation targeting “narcoterrorist” networks, as legal pressure intensifies with terrorist designations for groups like Tren de Aragua and a U.S. reward for Nicolás Maduro raised to $50 million.
• Regional and legal concerns are rising, with Cuba voicing support for Caracas and Venezuela invoking the Tlatelolco treaty over the nuclear‑propulsion submarine, which U.S. Navy sources note does not necessarily carry nuclear weapons.