US carrier begins three-week journey to Middle East amid Iran tensions

US President Donald Trump has ordered the deployment of the world’s largest aircraft carrier from the Caribbean Sea to the Middle East, significantly escalating military pressure on Iran as negotiations continue over its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

The USS Gerald R. Ford, accompanied by its supporting warships, is expected to take about three weeks to reach the region. Once there, it will join the USS Abraham Lincoln, sharply increasing US naval firepower available in the Middle East, according to foreign media reports.

Earlier in the week, Trump told Axios he was “thinking” about dispatching a second carrier strike group, while at that stage indicating he believed Tehran remained open to reaching a nuclear agreement.

The US and Iran held a round of indirect negotiations in Oman last week, with further talks anticipated, although no follow-up date has yet been set.

Reports in US media began circulating on Thursday, February 12, identifying the Ford as the carrier selected for deployment, one day after Trump met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, where the emerging negotiations with Iran were discussed.

Iran has signalled readiness to curb its uranium enrichment programme in exchange for sanctions relief, but has rejected additional demands. Israel has pressed for Tehran to limit its ballistic missile programme and end support for Hezbollah and other proxy groups.

Trump’s rhetoric toward Iran has shifted noticeably over the past month. Initially, he appeared to hint at possible intervention, telling demonstrators protesting against Iran’s leadership that “help is coming,” though at the time the US had limited military assets positioned nearby.

The situation changed following the arrival of the Lincoln carrier strike group. By then, however, Iranian authorities had largely regained control of unrest through a violent crackdown that killed thousands of people — possibly tens of thousands — in what observers described as the harshest repression in the country’s recent history.

Attention within the administration subsequently moved toward restricting Iran’s nuclear programme, which had already been weakened during a summer bombing campaign conducted by Israeli and US air forces during last year’s 12-day war.

The Ford carrier strike group had previously departed the eastern Mediterranean at the end of October and reached the Caribbean Sea in mid-November as Trump intensified pressure on Venezuela’s former president Nicolás Maduro. It played a central role in the US operation that resulted in Maduro’s capture in early January and had remained stationed in the Caribbean since then.

Redeploying the carrier back to the Middle East now creates an unusually long mission. The strike group originally left the United States in June 2025 and currently has no clear return date.

On Thursday, February 12, Trump warned that failure to reach an agreement would be “very traumatic” for Iran and said he expected negotiations to conclude soon.

“I guess over the next month, something like that,” he said when asked about a timeline for a nuclear deal. “It should happen quickly. They should agree very quickly.”

A day later, during a visit to the Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina, Trump said that a change of government in Iran would be “the best thing that could happen.”

“For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking. In the meantime, we’ve lost a lot of lives while they talk,” he told reporters.

By Tamilla Hasanova