F-35 jets arrive in Puerto Rico as Washington turns up pressure on Maduro

Stealth jets on a Caribbean runway

Six stealth fighters parked on a Caribbean runway sent a clear message this week: Washington wants both drug traffickers and Venezuela’s leadership to take notice. Publicly available satellite images and photos from aviation spotters showed U.S. Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II jets on the tarmac at the former Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Ceiba, Puerto Rico, after a hop from Yuma, Arizona, with a refueling stop near Tampa. The aircraft carried no visible unit markings on their tails, a common force-protection move when operating forward.

The deployment folds into a bigger counter-narcotics surge that the Trump administration has promoted as a showcase of hard power close to home. The fighter detachment adds speed, reach, and precision to an already sizable maritime presence: an amphibious ready group centered on the assault ship USS Iwo Jima, supporting amphibious transports, and a Marine expeditionary unit with a few thousand troops embarked. Surface combatants and surveillance aircraft are also in the mix, along with long-endurance drones that can track fast-moving boats across open water.

On paper, the mission is about intercepting cocaine corridors that arc through the Caribbean and eastern Pacific into the United States. In practice, the optics are broader. You don’t send fifth-generation jets into the neighborhood unless you want every government in the region—especially in Caracas—to see them.

Why F-35s in the Caribbean—and why now?

There’s a tactical reason. The F-35B is built for flexible basing. It can take off from short runways, operate from amphibious assault ships, and hop between austere airstrips. That means commanders can move the jets quickly around the theater, complicating an adversary’s planning. In the Caribbean, where distances are modest and islands are plentiful, that agility matters.

There’s also a strategic reason. The aircraft’s sensors are powerful. An F-35B can gather electronic and infrared data, stitch a picture of the battlespace, and share it with ships, drones, and ground units. Against go-fast boats and lightly armed smugglers, that’s overmatch. Against state forces—think integrated air defenses—that capability becomes essential. Putting these jets in Puerto Rico signals that the Pentagon can scale up fast if needed.

The move comes as Washington sharpens its rhetoric. Officials have described cartel networks as “narco-terrorists” and tied them to corrupt actors inside Venezuela. The United States has charged President Nicolás Maduro with drug trafficking crimes and has, since 2020, offered a reward for his arrest. Caracas denies the accusations and calls the deployments a provocation. Either way, the Caribbean now hosts the largest U.S. military posture there in years.

That posture is not just for show. U.S. forces say they have already interdicted and destroyed two suspected smuggling boats in recent operations at sea, with fatalities reported among those aboard. Kinetic strikes in drug cases are rare; most interdictions end with seizures and arrests led by the Coast Guard. The military says the use of force followed established rules of engagement. Rights groups are watching closely, worried about accountability at sea when lethal force is used far from cameras.

Cost is another question. Flying an F-35B is expensive—tens of thousands of dollars per flight hour, depending on how you count fuel, parts, and maintenance. Critics ask why use a top-end stealth fighter against smugglers when patrol planes, helicopters, and cutters usually do the job. Supporters counter that the presence is about deterrence as much as interdiction: make it riskier and pricier for traffickers to move product, and remind adversarial states that the U.S. can escalate quickly.

There’s a doctrinal thread too. The Marine Corps has been practicing expeditionary advanced base operations—small, mobile units jumping between island locations, using short runways and amphibious ships, and relying on platforms like the F-35B to sense and strike. Puerto Rico and nearby islands offer real-world terrain to test that playbook. If the jets operate from the deck of an amphibious assault ship one day and a shore strip the next, that’s the concept in action.

Zoom out and the force mix looks deliberate. Alongside the jets are destroyers and cruisers for air defense and maritime interdiction, a fast-attack submarine for intelligence and sea denial, and drones like the MQ-9 Reaper for persistent surveillance. The amphibious ships bring helicopters, landing craft, and Marines trained for visit, board, search, and seizure missions at sea. That layered stack is designed to find, fix, and finish targets across a wide area.

Legally, the lines are tight but clear. The Pentagon supports law enforcement under long-standing authority while the Coast Guard—under the Department of Homeland Security—typically leads interdictions. Much of the command-and-control runs through Joint Interagency Task Force South in Key West, which fuses intelligence from U.S. and partner nations across the region. Operating out of Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, keeps supply chains close and the diplomatic friction low compared with basing on foreign soil.

Still, the risk of mission creep is real. Label an operation “counter-narcotics,” then frame cartels as akin to terrorists, and it gets easier to justify heavier tools and looser rules. If an aircraft or a ship is threatened by a state-backed unit—or if a pursuit bumps up against Venezuelan waters—commanders could face split-second choices with regional fallout. That’s the scenario analysts worry about: a fast-moving interdiction turning into an international incident.

For Venezuela, the signal is hard to miss. Maduro’s government has relied on alliances with Russia, Iran, and Cuba to weather sanctions and isolation. In past years, Moscow has sent bombers and advisers to showcase support. A U.S. amphibious group with stealth fighters just offshore effectively counters that theater. It also reassures partners like Colombia and the Dutch Caribbean islands that Washington is paying attention.

How are locals in Puerto Rico reacting? Security brings jobs and contracts, and Roosevelt Roads has long been seen as a potential hub for aviation and logistics. But residents also remember the Navy’s controversial history on Vieques, where live-fire training sparked years of protests. Environmental impact, noise, and transparency are likely to be hot topics if the tempo ramps up.

The aircraft themselves drew notice for what they weren’t wearing: tail codes and squadron badges. In higher-threat or politically sensitive missions, the military sometimes strips external markings to limit targeting and online tracking. These jets are believed to belong to a Marine fighter squadron based in the Southwest that regularly partners with amphibious groups on deployments. Their transit into the Caribbean included tanker support—a KC-135 Stratotanker was photographed refueling them near Miami.

The choice of the F-35B model matters. Unlike its Air Force cousin, the B variant can do short takeoffs and vertical landings, which means it can operate from amphibious assault ships like USS Iwo Jima. That gives commanders options: keep the jets at sea and surge ashore, or base them on land and cycle them to the ship as needed. In a region of scattered islands and unpredictable weather, flexibility beats raw speed.

All this is happening while cocaine output in parts of the Andes has surged, trafficking routes have shifted, and criminal groups have grown more agile. The Caribbean “air bridge” of the 1980s and 1990s gave way to maritime corridors; now, with better radar and intelligence, smugglers change launch points and tactics frequently. The U.S. relies on a web of partnerships—from the Dominican Republic to the Dutch islands—to share data and stage interdictions. The new deployment plugs more sensors and shooters into that network.

Partners will watch how the United States uses the jets. If the F-35Bs are mostly high-end eyes and ears that help surface ships and Coast Guard teams make clean arrests, regional buy-in will be stronger. If they become the face of a more aggressive campaign with frequent lethal strikes at sea, expect louder criticism from Caribbean governments and human-rights groups. The balance between deterrence and de-escalation is the whole game here.

At the same time, U.S. officials have to think about bandwidth. The Pentagon is trying to deter China in the Pacific, support Ukraine, and keep tabs on the Middle East. Parking advanced assets in the Caribbean carries opportunity costs. That’s why commanders tend to rotate forces through rather than set up permanent fixtures, and why the narrative emphasizes quick, flexible, joint operations rather than a long occupation.

So what comes next? Watch for more ISR—intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance—flights, more joint patrols with regional navies and coast guards, and more high-profile drug busts. If the amphibious group conducts visible deck operations with the jets, that’s a signal of confidence and a rehearsal for wider contingencies. If the fighters quietly cycle back to the U.S. after a short burst, the message will have been sent without locking in a costly commitment.

Either way, the image sticks: America’s most advanced short-runway fighter sitting on a Puerto Rican apron, gray paint blending into tropical haze. It’s a snapshot of how Washington wants to fight close to home—fast, networked, and flexible—with the option to scale up if a cartel skiff isn’t the only thing that needs watching.

In the end, the debate will hinge on results. Are more cocaine shipments stopped? Are partners more willing to share intelligence and join patrols? Does the presence nudge Caracas toward talks or simply harden its stance? The answers will determine whether sending the F-35 to the Caribbean becomes an occasional show of force—or the new normal.