The United States deployed large amounts of troops and special operations aircraft to the Caribbean this week as tensions continue to escalate between Donald Trump and Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.

The fleet includes no fewer than ten CV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, C-17 cargo aircraft, as well as troops and other equipment which all arrived Monday, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

The troops could potentially be special operations as well, as the bases the aircraft came from house special ops units, though it is not yet clear what types of troops were being sent. 

Trump has called the US buildup in the region ‘a massive armada, the biggest we’ve ever had’ in a press conference Monday. He also said it would be ‘smart’ for Maduro to step down. 

He added: ‘Soon we will be starting the same program on land.’

At least 11 ships and 15,000 troops have already been deployed in the vicinity of the South American country. 

So far, the Trump administration’s drone strike campaign against Venezuelan boats have killed 95 people. 

‘It is standard practice to routinely rotate equipment and personnel to any military installation,’ a spokesperson for US Southern Command said in a statement. 

‘And as a standard practice, due to operational security concerns, we do not disclose details or comment on U.S. assets or personnel operational movements and activities, nor disclose details of specific operations or routes.’

The Pentagon declined comment, while The Daily Mail has also reached out to the White House. 

Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s most recent attempt to leverage Maduro has come in the form of seizing oil tankers. 

The tankers are part of what the Trump administration has said is a fleet Venezuela uses to evade US economic sanctions.

At an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council called by Venezuela, US Ambassador Mike Waltz on Tuesday stressed that sanctioned oil tankers ‘operate as the primary economic lifeline for Maduro and his illegitimate regime.’

‘Maduro´s ability to sell Venezuela´s oil enables his fraudulent claim to power and his narco-terrorist activities,’ Waltz said. 

‘The United States will impose and enforce sanctions to the maximum extent to deprive Maduro of the resources he uses to fund Cartel de los Soles.’

Cartel de los Soles – a term used to refer to high-ranking military officers who get rich by running drugs – was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the Trump administration last month. 

Venezuela´s parliament on Tuesday approved a measure that criminalizes the seizures.

The bill – introduced, debated and approved within two days in the National Assembly – follows this month’s seizures by US forces of two tankers carrying Venezuelan oil in international waters. 

The seizures are the latest strategy Trump’s four-month pressure campaign on Maduro.

The US Coast Guard on Saturday seized a Panama-flagged vessel called Centuries that officials said was part of the fleet moving sanctioned cargo. 

With assistance from the US Navy, it seized a rogue tanker called Skipper on December 10. That ship was registered in Panama.

Trump, after that first seizure, said the US would carry out a ‘blockade’ of Venezuela. 

He later demanded that Venezuela return assets that it seized from U.S. oil companies years ago, justifying anew his announcement of the blockade against sanctioned oil tankers traveling to or from the South American country.

Maduro, 62, has been in the crosshairs of the American justice system since March 2020, when he was indicted in the Southern District of New York on a litany of charges related to drug trafficking.

They included narco-terrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.

Immediately after the indictment, the first Trump administration offered a $15million reward for Maduro’s capture.

President Joe Biden’s State Department increased that to $25million, and the second Trump administration doubled it to $50million in August.

Maduro has been the president of Venezuela since April 2013 and in that time, he has been accused of consolidating power in executive agencies while simultaneously wrestling it away from the elected National Assembly.

There was so much doubt over the veracity of the 2018 presidential elections, which he won, that the president of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, was declared the true leader of Venezuela by anti-Maduro legislators.

Guaidó was even invited as a special guest to Trump’s State of the Union address in February 2020.

Democrats and Republicans alike cheered for Guaidó after Trump called him ‘the true and legitimate president of Venezuela’.

In 2024, Maduro ran for a third term as president. He was declared the winner in July by the Maduro-aligned election authority, which did not release the voting tallies from each of the 30,000 polling booths in the nation.

The opposition party, who ran Edmundo González as their candidate, also claimed victory.

In November 2024, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken officially recognized González as the president-elect of Venezuela.

The Trump administration has held the same position, with current Secretary of State Marco Rubio accusing Maduro of election tampering. 

Guaidó and González fled the country after both men had arrest warrants issued for them by Maduro’s government.