He ordered the world’s largest aircraft carrier to sail from the Caribbean Sea to the Middle East in a bid to increase pressure on it amid talks to curb its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
The USS Gerald R. Ford and its accompanying warships are expected to take about three weeks to return to the area, where they will join the USS Abraham Lincoln, dramatically increasing the military power at the US president’s disposal.
Trump in the Middle East on Tuesday, although at the time he said he believed Tehran was willing to reach a nuclear deal.
The US and Iran held a round of indirect talks in Oman last week and further talks were expected to follow, but no date has been set so far. Reports began circulating in US media on Thursday that the Ford was the aircraft carrier chosen to sail, a day after Trump met in Washington with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the ongoing negotiations with Iran.
Iran has said it is willing to curb its uranium enrichment program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions, but has rejected other demands. Israel wants Iran to curtail its ballistic missile program and end its support for Hezbollah and other proxy groups.
Change of rhetoric
Trump’s rhetoric toward Iran has changed markedly in the past month. He initially appeared to hint that he wanted to intervene, telling people demonstrating against the country’s regime that “help is coming”. At the time, however, the US had little military presence in the region.
That changed with the arrival of the Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group, but by then the Iranian regime had largely regained control of the streets, killing thousands of people—and possibly tens of thousands—in the most brutal crackdown in the country’s recent history.
At the same time, the US president’s attention appeared to shift to curbing Iran’s nuclear program, which had already suffered a major blow in a summer bombing campaign by Israeli and US air forces during last summer’s 12-day war.
The USS Gerald R. Ford
The Ford aircraft carrier strike group was dispatched from the eastern Mediterranean in late October and arrived in the Caribbean Sea in mid-November as Trump ramped up pressure on former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
He played a central role in the dramatic arrest of Maduro by US forces in early January and remained in the Caribbean. However, the return of the aircraft carrier and its allied warships to the Middle East represents an unusually long deployment: it had left the US in June 2025 and there is no clear return date.
On Thursday, Trump warned Iran that failure to reach a deal with his government would be “very traumatic” and said he hoped the talks would be completed soon.
“, Trump said in response to a question about the timetable for reaching a deal with Iran over its nuclear program. “It has to be done quickly. They have to agree very quickly.”
