In early January, Secretary of State Marco Rubio huddled with President Trump and U.S. generals to oversee a nighttime assault on Venezuela that resulted in the ouster of the country’s autocratic leader, Nicolás Maduro.
On Thursday, Mr. Rubio found himself explaining how the United States would help Venezuela after a devastating double earthquake left many citizens trapped under rubble.
The United States, he said, would provide a “whole-of-government response.”
“We’re already deploying search and rescue teams from Fairfax County, Virginia, and Los Angeles,” he told reporters. “There’ll be some others we’ll add. That’s their most immediate need right now, is search and rescue efforts.”
“The airport there is badly damaged, so we’ll have to rely on the Department of War to deploy assets there,” he added, using the Trump administration’s preferred name for the Defense Department. “And then we’re also helping them with some overhead imagery.”
Mr. Rubio’s remarks were intended to support Mr. Trump’s message on social media that the United States was “ready, willing and able to help.” They also signaled that the administration wanted the world to know that its interests in Venezuela could go beyond oil, despite the president’s aggressive assertions late last year that his country deserved to take the Caribbean nation’s most valuable resource.
It is unclear how much disaster relief the United States will actually commit to Venezuela, or whether the U.S. government is acting quickly enough to help in a meaningful way with rescue efforts. After the administration dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development last year, it began relying on offices in the State Department that have a fraction of the resources of that agency.
The U.S. response to the earthquake “is an opportunity” for the Trump administration, said Michael Shifter, a senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank.
In the months since Mr. Maduro’s capture, Mr. Shifter said, the administration of Delcy Rodríguez, a Maduro ally, has taken modest steps toward allowing greater political freedoms, including the release of about half of the country’s political prisoners.
But economic conditions have not improved for most Venezuelans despite high expectations set in part by Mr. Trump, who predicted that the country would boom as U.S. companies invested in its dilapidated oil infrastructure.
“There’s growing concerns about the heavy-handedness of the Trump administration sort of plundering and pillaging their country, and the loss of sovereignty and national control,” Mr. Shifter said. Earthquake relief “could be an opportunity to show that the U.S. is interested in something beyond business and oil.”
After Mr. Maduro’s capture — what some call an abduction — Mr. Trump and Mr. Rubio vowed to launch Venezuela on a gradual transition to democracy. “Ultimately, in order to truly transition, they have to have multiparty, free and fair elections,” Mr. Rubio told a Senate committee this month.
But the Trump administration has not suggested a timeline for such a transition, and the process has been slow to begin. Unlike previous U.S. presidents, Mr. Trump rarely promotes democracy or human rights, and he criticizes past American efforts to do so.
One small move among Venezuelan politicians occurred last week, when Ms. Rodríguez’s brother and the head of Venezuela’s National Assembly legislature, Jorge Rodríguez, met with a former opposition lawmaker, Dinorah Figuera, for talks on a democratic transition. The meeting, in Caracas, the capital, was the first between the country’s ruling party and its political opposition in at least a year and a half.
The State Department said in a statement that it “welcomed” the meeting, which it called “a first step in what will be a thoughtful process to secure a free and open Venezuelan society.” It added that a transition agenda would include “rebuilding Venezuela’s democratic institutions,” strengthening the country’s national elections oversight body, and ensuring free political discourse and participation.
But Mr. Shifter said that many close observers of Venezuela were “puzzled” by Ms. Figuera as the opposition representative to begin the talks. The country’s opposition leader is María Corina Machado, a popular figure and Nobel Peace Prize winner who remains in exile, and whose ambitions to lead the country Mr. Trump has declined to endorse.
The Trump administration has been establishing diplomatic and commercial ties with Venezuela, which Mr. Trump had cut in his first term.
The U.S. government reopened its embassy in Caracas on March 30. American officials have signed initial agreements with Venezuelan oil and mining companies. And on April 30, American Airlines operated the first commercial flight between the United States and Venezuela since Mr. Trump ended those in his first term.
The Trump administration has eased sanctions on the country, partly to mitigate the economic fallout from the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. In March, the Treasury Department issued a sanctions waiver allowing U.S. companies to do business with Venezuela’s national oil company, PDVSA. The move increased global oil supplies as prices soared after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz.
Mr. Rubio told senators this month that revenue from Venezuela’s oil sales is being deposited in a U.S.-controlled bank account, and used to pay government workers and purchase medical supplies and equipment.
Mr. Rubio also noted that the United States and Britain removed a small amount of highly enriched uranium from the country last month that was related to its moribund nuclear energy program. He said that Venezuela “wanted it out of their country.”
