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Ten­sions con­tin­ue to mount in the Caribbean Sea, af­ter two Venezue­lan F-16 fight­er jets flew near the USS Ja­son Dun­ham in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters Thurs­day, an ac­tion the Pen­ta­gon de­scribed as “high­ly provoca­tive.”

The Dun­ham, an Aegis guid­ed-mis­sile de­stroy­er, is part of a US naval flotil­la de­ployed to the re­gion to tar­get drug car­tels and nar­co-ter­ror­ist net­works. Wash­ing­ton ac­cused Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro’s ad­min­is­tra­tion of at­tempt­ing to ob­struct its op­er­a­tions and said any threats to US ves­sels would be met with de­ci­sive ac­tion.

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump an­nounced the de­ploy­ment of ten F-35 fight­er jets to Puer­to Ri­co to strength­en US forces in the re­gion. Speak­ing yes­ter­day, Trump de­scribed re­cent in­ter­dic­tions and warned traf­fick­ers us­ing what he called the Caribbean “run­way to the Unit­ed States” that they would “be in trou­ble.”