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Critics of President Trump insist that his administration has bungled its response to the devastating earthquakes in Venezuela. They blame his dismantling of the US Agency for International Development. But those critics are wrong.
USAID led America’s humanitarian disaster response for years. But after the Biden administration turned agency irreparably woke, Trump handed most of those responsibilities to the State Department. The reaction was predictably strident. “The evisceration of USAID,” said one critic, “…will hamper the capacity of international relief agencies.” Another claimed that the nation had “lost the capability to deploy search and rescue.”
As the former head of USAID and the federal lead for global disaster response, I oversaw aid for earthquakes, hurricanes, Ebola outbreaks, the Beirut port explosion and massive war-related migrations. I know what competent emergency response looks like. It looks like what the United States is doing in Venezuela.
The essential elements for successful emergency responses remain intact: first responders, known as Disaster Assistance Response Teams DARTs, regional support hubs, nearby warehousing storing large-scale food and nonfood aid, search-and-rescue tools, and most importantly, a hand-in-glove relationship with the US Department of Defense that provides our civilian response with military aircraft, communications, logistics support and critical armed security. All are in place and were smoothly deployed within hours of the devastating earthquakes.
A robust 300-person team arrived almost immediately in Venezuela, along with a commitment of $300 million in aid. That sum is huge. It’s in line with President Trump’s “full commitment to being supportive of Venezuela.”
As the Department of State tweeted: “The United States’ response … is big, fast, effective, and ongoing.
Most impressive is how President Trump is using foreign aid as an effective tool of national security. Whereas the Biden administration used USAID to impose radical social ideas — funding drag shows in Ecuador and condoms for the Taliban — the Trump approach is to ensure that foreign aid is always aligned with American interests and values.
Consider: Had President Trump not disposed of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro in January, our response to the earthquakes would have been seriously curtailed. Maduro’s deposition allowed America to restore billions of dollars in domestic oil revenues in the leadup to these quakes, easing the country’s economic crisis.
And now that the country is free of its anti-American tyrant, our Defense Department is able to create a secure global humanitarian construct that makes full use of our military and logistical technology — especially C-130s and Blackhawk and Chinook helicopters that can swiftly airlift personnel, medicine, food and water to desperate communities. US military assets would never have been permitted to enter the Maduro regime’s borders.
Venezuela’s allies under the old regime — Communist China, Russia, and Iran — do not do humanitarian aid. They would have left the Venezuelan people behind.
The potential for even greater disaster — hunger, social unrest, disease — has been stemmed. Innumerable lives have been saved, and Venezuela’s neighbors will be free of destabilizing mass migration. In retrospect, President Trump’s removal of Maduro betrays a providential hand.
The administration’s plans for Venezuela’s complete transition to democratic self-governance will now have to be expedited. Remnants of Maduro’s corrupt regime still exist. They’re proving themselves incapable of adequately responding to the tasks of rescue and reconstruction. Venezuelans are discovering how many corrupt officials over the years took bribes and issued construction permits for buildings that were not earthquake resistant.
The White House has ably managed its relationships with both the regime and opposition and is well placed to help Venezuelans craft a quicker transition plan to hold free elections, dismantle corrupting and disastrous socialist economic policies, and reintegrate the country back into our hemispheres fold of democracies.
Far from criticizing President Trump, his critics ought to thank him.
Max Primorac is a Senior Research Fellow at the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, The Heritage Foundation. He is a former senior aid official in the previous Trump and George W. Bush administrations.
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