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.