Commentary: The powers that be in Venezuela are exploiting a tragedy as its people suffer

Major disasters have a way of bringing people together. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks ushered in months of unity and bonhomie among New Yorkers. The 1985 earthquake in Mexico City, which killed approximately 5,000 people, did much the same, with Mexican civilians teaming up to launch their own rescue operations as the federal and city governments were floundering.

That’s not entirely the case in Venezuela. On the one hand, the twin earthquakes that rocked the Venezuelan coastal state of La Guaira and parts of the capital Caracas have inspired remarkable teamwork, which this South American country hasn’t seen since the devastating mudslides of 1999, when at least 10,000 people were killed. Still, Venezuela remains in political turmoil, with the country’s interim authorities struggling to cater to Washington’s wishes on a daily basis and its politics remaining the most fractious in Latin America.

In an ideal world, everybody would let go of political agendas during a tragedy of this scale and focus on saving as many people as possible. Unfortunately, the disaster response has been politicized by pretty much everyone. President Donald Trump, Venezuelan interim President Delcy Rodríguez and Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, arguably the three most important people in Venezuelan politics today, are hoping to use the natural disaster still roiling the country to bolster their own reputations and positions.

To Trump’s credit, the White House’s response to the earthquake was immediate. The Trump administration quickly authorized a $150 million package of aid, dispatched search and rescue teams to assist Venezuelan authorities, and ordered the U.S. military to provide air-lifting capabilities to assist with the evacuation of the injured. A U.S. team was also dispatched to Simón Bolívar International Airport, which serves Caracas, to repair runways and ensure aircraft carrying supplies could land.

The U.S. aid is appropriate and desperately needed, from a moral and humanitarian standpoint. But let’s be honest: Trump isn’t sending cash and rescue personnel out of the goodness of his heart. There are geopolitical and personal reasons behind the decision as well. Trump points to Venezuela as the prime success story of his foreign policy, a chief illustration of his decisiveness and an example of how the “Donroe Doctrine” is a smashing success for U.S. power and influence in the Western Hemisphere. Trump’s marveling over the daring Jan. 3 U.S. raid that led to the arrest and extraction of former Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro has become a staple in his public remarks.

You can’t blame him; with Maduro out of the way, Venezuela has transformed from one of Washington’s chief adversaries in Latin America into a de facto puppet state, with U.S. officials effectively controlling Venezuela’s crude oil revenue and dictating where that money can be spent.

Trump doesn’t want the earthquakes to become a political crisis for Rodríguez, Maduro’s former vice president who ascended to the top job with Washington’s blessing. Although Rodríguez may be an old-school Chavista who served in multiple senior roles when Maduro was in the presidential palace, Trump likes what he sees so far: deals, deals and more deals. The Rodríguez government has handed Trump pretty much all he could ask for, including opening up Venezuela’s mining sector to American companies, reforming the country’s nationalistic oil policies and working with the U.S. intelligence community to go after the criminal syndicates that prospered during Maduro’s nearly 13-year tenure. In short: Trump wants Venezuela’s new regime to survive.

Rodríguez, of course, wants to survive as well. This means not only ingratiating herself with her new overlords in Washington but also strengthening her political position amid a Venezuelan opposition bloc that won the 2024 presidential elections but was nevertheless forced to swallow the indignities of the Chavista regime staying in power.

The Chavistas are making a public display of their leadership during a time of crisis and appear more interested in hampering the opposition’s own rescue efforts than implementing a successful disaster response of their own. The Venezuelan security forces have reportedly tried to block the distribution of supplies and collection points managed by Vente Venezuela, the political coalition headed up by Machado. And the regime is attempting to use its dominance over the airwaves to project strength, resolve and competence despite eyewitness accounts revealing anything but.

Machado, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning politician, isn’t above politicizing a tragedy either. Ever since she snuck out of Venezuela in December to claim her prize, Machado has tried to reenter the country to reinvigorate her political movement and influence how any Venezuelan political transition — assuming one actually occurs — progresses. The Trump administration has advised her against doing so, partly due to her own personal safety and partly because it sees Machado as a potentially destabilizing force that could upend a status quo that’s working.

The earthquakes have only emboldened Machado in this regard. While she would never admit this publicly, Machado likely views the earthquakes as a golden political opportunity to embarrass Rodríguez for being an illegitimate head of state who is simply overwhelmed by the tasks in front of her.

There is something to that argument. The Venezuelan government’s track record in the week since the earthquakes struck has been abysmally poor, a consequence of the state’s institutional capacity having been hollowed out from within over the last three decades. Considering her lifelong dream is to lead Venezuela, Machado could use any help she can get to bolster her own credentials.

While ordinary Venezuelans continue to dig with their bare hands for survivors, the powers that be are trying to figure out how to spin a catastrophe for their own ends.

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Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the Tribune.

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