The United States has positioned three guided-missile destroyers and the USS Iwo Jima amphibious readiness group, with roughly 4,500 Marines on board, just off Venezuela’s coast under U.S. Southern Command. The Trump administration says the vessels are part of an expanded anti-narcotics mission authorised by a classified directive issued this month. Washington’s move follows the Treasury Department’s July designation of the so-called Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organisation and the doubling of the reward for information leading to President Nicolás Maduro’s arrest to US$50 million. U.S. officials accuse Maduro of heading the cartel and funnelling cocaine to North America; federal prosecutors have also opened new narcoterrorism investigations against senior Venezuelan officials. The deployment has split Latin American governments. Paraguay formally listed the cartel as a terrorist group and its foreign minister, Rubén Ramírez, said the confrontation "concerns the entire region." Venezuelan opposition figure María Corina Machado praised the step, while U.S. Representative Carlos Giménez warned that Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, could face American charges if he "cooperates" with Maduro after Petro dismissed the cartel as a "fictional excuse" and urged joint action with Washington and Caracas against other smuggling networks. Caracas has responded by rallying domestic support. Maduro claims 4.5 million citizens have enrolled in the Bolivarian Militia, and Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez said the country remains "working and producing" despite what she called U.S. interventionist ambitions. Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello labelled the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration "the world’s largest drug cartel" and denied links between Venezuelan officials and Mexican or Colombian trafficking groups. Analysts say the arrival of the Iwo Jima group marks the largest U.S. naval concentration near Venezuela in six months and raises the risk of maritime or aerial incidents, though few expect a full-scale invasion. Regional leaders are pressing for diplomatic channels even as legal pressures and military signalling intensify on both sides.