The USS Gerald R. Ford transits the Strait of Gibraltar on October 1. Alyssa Joy/US Navy/Getty Images

It doesn’t take America’s most lethal aircraft carrier, its F/A-18 jets and battle group of guided missile cruisers, anti-aircraft ships and submarine hunter destroyers to blast a few speedboats out of the Caribbean.

So as the USS Gerald R. Ford steams from Europe to join an already formidable US naval and air force in the region, expectations are rising that the Trump administration may escalate what it claims is an assault on drug traffickers .

The first target of this new 21st-century gunboat diplomacy is Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro , an election-denying dictator. The Ford will deliver a giant hint to Maduro to go, or for Venezuelan army officers to oust him. Or it co

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