Venezuela Quakes Test US Response After USAID Gutting
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- State Department dispatched a 250+ person Disaster Assistance Response Team to Venezuela with three specialized urban search and rescue teams and a $150 million assistance fund, with Rubio calling it a "big, fast, effective" "whole-of-government" response within 24 hours of the quakes.
- The Venezuelan earthquakes killed at least 920 people, with the scale far exceeding anything the Trump administration has faced in disaster response, according to the source.
- Trump captured Maduro in a January special forces raid; his successor Delcy Rodríguez has proven "far more amenable" to the US, and Trump claimed Friday that outside the disaster zone "it's a happy country again, people are dancing in the streets."
- USAID cuts gutted the agency and transferred disaster assistance to the State Department, with the US foreign assistance unit in Colombia shrinking from 144 staff to just 14 members and many ties to local NGOs and contractors severed.
- Former USAID counselor Susan Reichle called this "their first real test" of disaster response under the new structure, emphasizing that the first 72 hours after an earthquake are crucial for reaching survivors.
- Council on Foreign Relations fellow Sam Vigersky, who previously led DARTs in Africa, analyzed that the State Department's response is keeping pace with past US responses to earthquakes in Turkey (2023) and Haiti (2021), and that the $150 million pledge was the largest he'd seen within 24 hours of a sudden-onset disaster.
Why it matters: The $150 million commitment is the largest US aid seen within 24 hours of a sudden-onset disaster, and outside experts say the response is keeping pace with previous earthquake missions in Turkey and Haiti — despite the administration having dismantled USAID's humanitarian infrastructure. Beyond the humanitarian stakes, the mission tests whether Trump's model of recasting foreign aid as a mutually beneficial pact can deliver in a crisis, while shoring up the interim Venezuelan government that came to power only because US special forces captured its predecessor.
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