The disaster unfolding in Venezuela has drawn a direct response from the White House. According to the report, U.S. President Donald Trump offered American assistance to the country in the hours after powerful back-to-back earthquakes struck, signaling that Washington was prepared to step in to help with the emergency.
Trump made his comments publicly and in stark terms. According to the report, he wrote on Truth Social that the two major earthquakes that just hit Venezuela are both massive in scale and have left a devastating number of deaths, framing the disaster as a severe and large-scale tragedy even as the full picture remained unclear.
Alongside that assessment, the president set out what the United States was prepared to do. According to the report, Trump said the USA stands ready, willing and able to help, and that he had instructed all agencies of the U.S. government to get ready to move quickly in response to the unfolding situation on the ground.
His message also carried a notable diplomatic tone toward Caracas. According to the report, Trump said the United States would be there for what he called new and great friends, while cautioning that early reports are not good, underscoring concern about the scale of the damage and loss of life being reported.
The American offer came as Venezuela's own authorities moved onto an emergency footing. According to the report, the country's interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, declared a state of emergency, with the main international airport closed due to damage and classes cancelled for several days as the response got under way.
The human cost, however, has still not been quantified by officials. According to the report, Rodriguez extended her condolences to the families of those killed but did not provide a number of fatalities or injuries, after the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 quakes struck west of Caracas within about a minute of each other and caused buildings to collapse.
As the response moved beyond initial pledges, Secretary of State Marco Rubio set out the practical shape of the American effort. He said El Salvador had stepped up and that multiple countries around the region, including Chile, had reached out to coordinate assistance. Rubio described the response as unfolding in two phases, beginning with a short-term phase of response and recovery, to be followed by a second phase focused on identifying Venezuela's longer-term and more acute needs once teams were able to assess the situation directly.
Rubio said a clearer assessment would come after the next 48 hours on the ground, pointing to housing for displaced people and the restoration of communications, internet and telecom as likely priorities. He anticipated a surge of private donations, particularly from places such as South Florida, and said the State Department had already been in touch with leading charities, that it would provide 150 million dollars to aid groups in Venezuela, and that it had stood up its disaster response teams, drawing a comparison with the American effort in Jamaica after a storm. He added that he had already spoken to Secretary Hegseth, and that the Department of War would have to play a big logistical role given its ability to land in challenging places, noting that the airport in Caracas was damaged and one of its runways cracked.