Trump ‘is READY to launch devastating US airstrikes inside Venezuela to topple Maduro – and they could come any moment’.

AMERICAN forces are reportedly preparing to bomb military installations inside Venezuela – and the strikes could come in a “matter of days or even hours”.

Donald Trump has already moved US naval and air assets closer to Venezuelan shores – stoking fears of an all-out war.

An aircraft carrier at sea, with smaller boats nearby.

The Pentagon has sent USS Gerald R. Ford to the Caribbean as part of President Donald Trump’s effort to ‘dismantle’ criminal organisations

An US F-35 fighter jet is pictured during an event of the US Air Force

The strikes will target military airbases and ports used by the Cartel de los Soles, a drug-trafficking organisation the US says is led by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his regime.

The US military is now preparing to destroy the cartel networks and wipe out its top leadership.

And the attacks could take place in just “days or even hours”, sources with knowledge of the situation told the Miami Herald.

It comes after Trump has sent the world’s biggest warship to join his drug-busting force in the Caribbean.

The latest move saw the state-of-the-art Gerald R Ford Carrier Strike Group join the American ring of steel currently stationed near Venezuelan waters.

In recent weeks, tensions between Washington and Caracas have reached their most dangerous point in years.

Trump escalated the fight beyond rhetoric, declaring the US in a “non-international armed conflict” with cartel groups and cutting any sort of diplomatic contact with the country.

US military has conducted at least 13 deadly strikes against suspected drug vessels that have killed about 57 people from Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador, according to U.S. officials.

Trump’s lethal strikes off the coast of Venezuela have targeted what he says is a hotbed for drug traffickers heading for American shores.

Trump says the campaign is about “saving lives,” calling Maduro’s Venezuela a “worst abuser” of open borders and a pipeline for drugs.

He insists the US military can target criminal organisations without inciting war with the South American nation.

Pentagon said the carrier group is joining a southern command centre to “bolster US capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States homeland.”

The Ford-carrier, commissioned in 2017, is capable of hauling up to 90 aircraft and holding more than 5,000 sailors, making it the largest in the world.