Rubio praises Trump in Venezuela National Day message
Secretary of State Marco Rubio used a statement celebrating Venezuela National Day, which marks the 215th anniversary of the country’s Declaration of Independence from Spain, to hail the Trump administration’s “swift response efforts” to the recent twin earthquakes that killed thousands in the South American nation.
“On behalf of the United States of America, I join the people of Venezuela as they mark this national day,” Rubio said in a statement released on Sunday.
“We hold in our hearts and are united in prayer for the Venezuelans affected by the recent devastating earthquakes. Their courage and unity in the face of tragedy reflect the Venezuelan people’s enduring resilient spirit,” he added.
The twin earthquakes, which had a magnitude of 7.2 and 7.5, struck on June 24 just seconds apart and hit the coastal area of La Guaira, north of Caracas, the hardest. The number of deaths from the back-to-back earthquakes has now risen to nearly 3,000 victims, as rescue work goes amid dwindling hopes to pull any more survivors out of the rubble.
Among the international rescuers that have joined Venezuela’s searches for survivors are the ones from the U.S., as Rubio highlighted in his statement on Sunday.
“The Trump Administration’s swift response efforts in delivering life-saving relief, including the activation of urban search and rescue teams from the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department, the Los Angeles County Fire Department, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, and City of Miami Department of Fire-Rescue, demonstrate our support for a full recovery,” Rubio said.
“Amid this difficult time, we look forward to continuing the work towards a stable, prosperous, and democratic Venezuela aligned with the United States.”
International Rescue Teams Start Wrapping Up Operations
As of Saturday, the government confirmed that the death toll had reached 2,954 and was likely to continue rising. After days of digging through the rubble, the search for survivors is now coming to an end, even as more than 41,000 are estimated to be missing, according to unofficial data cited by Reuters.
The earthquakes have left a country where millions of people were already struggling after years of Maduro’s authoritative regime and economic mismanagement in shambles, with an estimated 16,000 people left homeless by the disaster.
There have been complaints against the way the Venezuelan government has handled the rescue efforts and its response to the emergency, which many said has been too slow and ineffectual, while neighbors and neighboring communities have stepped up to help La Guaira’s victims.
“The president said that help arrived quickly but it wasn’t like that. We’ve gotten help from regular people,” Miguel Poleo, who joined a rescue crew in La Guaira, told Reuters. “The police are walking around with their guns, their semiautomatics, as if we are in a war. What we need them to do is work.”
What the U.S. Has Done to Help Venezuela
President Donald Trump said he was “in charge” of Venezuela only six months ago, after Nicolas Maduro’s arrest and removal from the South American country. He promised to “run” the country and make it bloom under his guidance, fixing its “oil infrastructure” and using that money to fund the reconstruction of its dilapidated hospitals and crumbling roads.
But six months after this announcement, the earthquakes struck a country that was still very dysfunctional under the leadership of Delcy Rodríguez, former deputy to the ousted dictator. The country’s high national debt is still preventing Venezuela from returning to the world’s financial markets, and citizens do not know when they will return to the ballot to democratically pick a new leader.
After the tragedy, Trump pledged to “be there for our new and great friends,” “immediately” sending support for rescue operations.
The Department of State, under Rubio, has deployed a regional Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) and urban search-and-rescue teams to Venezuela “to assess needs and provide search and recovery assistance.”
The Trump administration has also been providing aerial images to help Venezuela authorities assess the damage caused by the quakes, and has collaborated with U.S. departments, U.N. agencies, NGOs, and host governments to deliver search-and-rescue support to find victims under the rubble and support survivors.
No help will come from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which was closed by the president nearly a year ago now. Before it was shut down, USAID was widely considered the biggest funding agency for humanitarian and development assistance across the world.
