Venezuelan earthquakes test Trump’s new western hemisphere policy after gutting of USAID

This week’s 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 an ally in Latin America, after a US special forces raid in January deposed the country’s strongman leader, Nicolás Maduro.

The US is marshalling what secretary of state Marco Rubio called a “big, fast, effective” and “whole-of-government” 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 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 Rodríguez, has been far more amenable to the US.

“They had a tremendous earthquake, a lot of people killed right in Caracas and we have a lot of people over there helping,” Trump said on Friday, adding that the US had a great relationship with Venezuela since capturing Maduro. “We’ve taken out millions of barrels of oil and we’ve paid for the war many times over. But just as importantly … they’re making more money than they’ve ever done.

“Outside of what happened last night … it was a big earthquake, knocked down buildings, but outside [of the earthquake] it’s a happy country again, people are dancing in the streets.”

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.

“This is their first real test, because of the magnitude of the disaster,” said Susan Reichle, a former counsellor for USAID, who worked on disaster response including after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. “It’s obviously within our hemisphere and it’s critical to our foreign policy under President Trump.”

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.

“On a positive side, they immediately did declare a disaster and called for the activation of the DART, as well as the search and rescue,” she said, adding that the first 72 hours after an earthquake were crucial for reaching survivors.

Rodríguez, Venezuela’s acting president, said on Saturday that dozens of people had been rescued alive, which “brings us joy that they can embrace their families and loved ones”.

The US’s anti-internationalist approach to public health has already caused some missed opportunities. Health experts said that the US’s 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 – by as much as 10 days – 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 “terrible and abominable” display.

In this case, the US response appears calculated to pre-empt the scrutiny that many expect the mission to encounter.

“They feel the pressure, and they’re throwing all the resources at this emergency in a way that hopefully delivers for people who desperately need help,” 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’s office of foreign disaster assistance.

In an analysis, Vigersky compiled a number of key indicators – including the dispatch of DART and Urban Search and Rescue – 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 “within the first 24 hours of a sudden onset”.

“There’s obviously the political element to Venezuela,” he said. “They have this relationship with the interim government, it’s in their interest to see them succeed and be stable.”