{"id":215266,"date":"2026-06-28T22:56:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T22:56:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/venezuelan-earthquakes-test-trumps-new-western-hemisphere-policy-after-gutting-of-usaid-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T22:56:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T22:56:27","slug":"venezuelan-earthquakes-test-trumps-new-western-hemisphere-policy-after-gutting-of-usaid-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/venezuelan-earthquakes-test-trumps-new-western-hemisphere-policy-after-gutting-of-usaid-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Venezuelan earthquakes test Trump\u2019s new western hemisphere policy after gutting of USAID – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marco Rubio is scrambling to provide effective disaster response to country whose president US deposed in January
This week\u2019s dual earthquakes in Venezuela are a test for the new era of American power in the western hemisphere, as the Trump administration<\/a> scrambles to provide an effective disaster response mission to a country that it now calls an ally in Latin America, after a US special forces raid in January deposed the country\u2019s strongman leader, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.
The US is marshalling what secretary of state Marco Rubio<\/a> called a \u201cbig, fast, effective\u201d and \u201cwhole-of-government\u201d response as the state department sent three specialised urban search and rescue teams and pledged a $150m assistance fund that one former disaster relief expert called the largest he had seen within 24 hours of an incident.
The disaster assistance response team (DART) deployed to Venezuela<\/a> includes more than 250 people, the state department said in a statement.
This is a high-stakes mission for the US. The Trump White House has gutted the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and put disaster assistance under the state department, laying off thousands of aid workers in the process.
And Trump earlier this year had Maduro snatched in a special forces operation and brought to the US to face narco-terrorism conspiracy and other federal charges. His successor, Delcy Rodr\u00edguez<\/a>, has been far more amenable to the US.
\u201cThey had a tremendous earthquake, a lot of people killed right in Caracas and we have a lot of people over there helping,\u201d Trump said on Friday, adding that the US had a great relationship with Venezuela since capturing Maduro. \u201cWe\u2019ve taken out millions of barrels of oil and we\u2019ve paid for the war many times over. But just as importantly \u2026 they\u2019re making more money than they\u2019ve ever done.
\u201cOutside of what happened last night \u2026 it was a big earthquake, knocked down buildings, but outside [of the earthquake] it\u2019s a happy country again, people are dancing in the streets.\u201d
While the US has responded previously to disasters such as Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica, the scale of the earthquakes in Venezuela, which have left at least 920 dead, far exceeds anything that the administration has faced yet.
\u201cThis is their first real test, because of the magnitude of the disaster,\u201d said Susan Reichle, a former counsellor for USAID, who worked on disaster response including after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. \u201cIt\u2019s obviously within our hemisphere and it\u2019s critical to our foreign policy under President Trump.\u201d
Under the Trump administration, the US has recast foreign aid as a pact that should be mutually beneficial, rather than one of charity. It has focused on reducing bilateral deals for US support and cut down on the infrastructure of US humanitarian aid overseas, especially through cuts to USAID.
The US foreign assistance unit in Colombia had 144 people on staff before the USAID cuts, Reichle said, but now only has 14 members on the ground, and many ties have been severed with local NGOs and contractors.
\u201cOn a positive side, they immediately did declare a disaster and called for the activation of the DART, as well as the search and rescue,\u201d she said, adding that the first 72 hours after an earthquake were crucial for reaching survivors.
Rodr\u00edguez, Venezuela\u2019s acting president, said on Saturday that dozens of people had been rescued alive, which \u201cbrings us joy that they can embrace their families and loved ones\u201d.
The US\u2019s anti-internationalist approach to public health has already caused some missed opportunities. Health experts said that the US\u2019s withdrawal from the World Health Organization led to a substantial delay in the country being informed about the outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo \u2013 by as much as 10 days \u2013 which significantly affected its response to the crisis.
The Trump administration has also had something of an empathy crisis. During his first term, Donald Trump visited Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria devastated the island, and threw rolls of paper towels to families who were living without water or electricity in what the mayor of San Juan called a \u201cterrible and abominable\u201d display.
In this case, the US response appears calculated to pre-empt the scrutiny that many expect the mission to encounter.
\u201cThey feel the pressure, and they\u2019re throwing all the resources at this emergency in a way that hopefully delivers for people who desperately need help,\u201d said Sam Vigersky, an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He previously led US disaster assistance response teams in Africa and worked in USAID\u2019s office of foreign disaster assistance.
In an analysis<\/a>, Vigersky compiled a number of key indicators \u2013 including the dispatch of DART and Urban Search and Rescue \u2013 which showed the state department was keeping pace with past US responses to earthquakes in Turkey (2023) and Haiti (2021). The US commitment of sending $150m to Venezuela for the response was the largest Vigersky had seen \u201cwithin the first 24 hours of a sudden onset\u201d.
\u201cThere\u2019s obviously the political element to Venezuela,\u201d he said. \u201cThey have this relationship with the interim government, it\u2019s in their interest to see them succeed and be stable.\u201d<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marco Rubio is scrambling to provide effective disaster response to country whose president US deposed in JanuaryThis week\u2019s dual earthquakes in Venezuela are a test for the new era of American power in the western hemisphere, as the Trump administration scrambles to provide an effective disaster response mission to a country that it now calls […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":215267,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-215266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}