The Trump administration is accumulating a massive U.S. military presence in the Caribbean, deploying warships, surveillance planes and fighter aircraft as it continues to blow up alleged drug-trafficking boats in the waters around South America.

The main target for the flurry of activity appears to be Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whom the administration has called an "illegitimate leader." The country's attorney general said over the weekend there is "no doubt" that Trump wants to topple Maduro's regime.

On Friday, the Department of Defense (DOD) ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford and its escort ships to head to the U.S. Southern Command (Southcom) area of responsibility, significantly expanding the U.S. military presence there, which already counts around 10,000 U.S. forces supporting counternarcotics operations.

Earlier this month, Trump confirmed he had authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela. The U.S. flew B-52 Stratofortress bombers near the coast of Venezuela. And last week, two Air Force B-1 bombers flew near Venezuela’s airspace.

“So I think that's another example of the president trying to scare the pants off of Nicolás Maduro and his top generals in order to hopefully create ... some sort of breaks within the regime, which might lead to a change that might be more favorable to an opening with the opposition,” said Christopher Hernandez-Roy, the deputy director and senior fellow of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

He called the B-52 bombers that flew for hours off the Venezuelan coast an action meant "to intimidate" the country and it's military. He said the U.S. "seems to be telegraphing some sort of imminent kinetic action inside Venezuela.”

“And while that has not yet taken place, it seems to be, it seems that the administration has been closer to that, but I think that they would prefer their pressure to lead to some sort of internal fissures within the government that might lead to a change of government without the U.S. actually having … to engage in military activities on the actual territory of Venezuela,” he said in an interview with The Hill last........

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