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

Members of US search and rescue teams stand on a runway upon arrival in Venezuela on Friday. Photograph: US Department of State/Reuters View image in fullscreen Members of US search and rescue teams stand on a runway upon arrival in Venezuela on Friday. Photograph: US Department of State/Reuters Analysis Venezuelan earthquakes test Trump’s new western hemisphere policy after gutting of USAID Andrew Roth Marco Rubio is scrambling to provide effective disaster response to country whose president US deposed in January 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.” Survivors tell of ‘brutal and fast’ Venezuela quake as hunt for survivors goes on Read more 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 pol