Venezuela earthquakes deepen rift between GOP hawks and Trump-backed regime

Republicans hawkish on leftist Latin America are warning that Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodríguez must be cut out from accessing robust U.S. assistance to the country, as the Trump administration helps lead the global humanitarian response to two massive earthquakes last week.

President Trump has placed little emphasis on a democratic transition in the country more than six months after the U.S. launched an audacious operation capturing the country’s autocratic president, Nicolás Maduro, and transferring him to New York to face drug charges.

Instead, he has largely praised Rodríguez as a willing partner in America’s effort to tap into Venezuela’s vast oil resources, painting a sharp contrast to others in his party, particularly those in Florida with large Venezuelan diaspora constituencies.

“I’ve called Delcy Rodríguez … she’s the interim dictator, she’s part of the old regime, they’re failing at their job right now,” Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) said in an interview with CNN earlier this week.

“We should be extracting more from the regime, say if you want our help then we need to speed up the process of restoring democracy to Venezuela.”

The Trump administration has galvanized a major response to record-breaking twin earthquakes that struck north-central Venezuela on June 24, earmarking $300 million in humanitarian support, dispatching the U.S. military to help secure the airport and manage relief logistics on the ground, and facilitating rescue efforts to respond to the devastation.

The Venezuelan government’s official death toll of 2,000 people is viewed as a vast undercount. The United Nations estimates that 50,000 people are missing and said on Wednesday that some 1,000 buildings — including hospitals — have been damaged or completely destroyed, along with more than 400 schools and water systems.

While more than 6,400 people have been rescued so far, the window for finding survivors is closing. The needs for the injured and displaced are enormous.

And some GOP lawmakers accuse the Rodríguez government of being part of the problem, by holding back humanitarian assistance from reaching the people who need it most.

“Only a criminal would stand between rescue workers and people trapped beneath the rubble,” Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) wrote on social media. She referenced a video seeming to show an American rescue crew blocked by Venezuela’s Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello from accessing a disaster site.

The U.S. designated Cabello a member of a foreign terrorist organization in January 2025 and put a $25 million bounty on his head.

“It’s time for Diosdado Cabello to be extradited from Venezuela to face justice for his crimes,” Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.) wrote on social platform X Tuesday.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) warned against any U.S. aid being transferred to the Rodríguez government, saying it is “essential that all aid and humanitarian resources remain under United States supervision.”

“NOT A SINGLE CENT should go to Delcy Rodríguez, Diosdado Cabello, or any part of their brutal and corrupt regime,” he wrote on social media.

The government’s disaster response is being overseen by Jorge Rodríguez, the interim-president’s brother and president of the National Assembly of Venezuela, the country’s parliament.

International Crisis Group senior analyst Phil Gunson, who is based in Caracas, said the Rodríguez government’s instinct is to use any opportunity to consolidate control, which is coming out in response to the earthquake in messy ways.

There have been isolated cases of uniform security forces looting, the government trying to shut down aid collection centers tied to the political opposition and claiming control of the country’s damaged airport, which is effectively administered by the U.S. military.

“The government hates to lose any kind of control of command functions, and they would rather — this is a terrible thing to say — but I think they would rather let people lie under the rubble than concede things like that,” he said, pointing to the confrontation with Cabello as an example.

“Of course, this is causing — the word I think would be fury, on the part of people, people who are waiting for their families to be dug out.”

But whether that fury translates into even greater pressure for the U.S. to usher along a political transition is difficult to assess so early in the rescue and recovery efforts.

“The dust literally has not settled,” he said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on June 25 that he spoke with Rodríguez and acknowledged that the earthquakes are a “setback” to the administration’s three-phase plan for a democratic transition in Venezuela. Rubio laid out the plan earlier this year — focused on stabilizing the country, economic recovery and then a political transition.

But the dire humanitarian needs resulting from the earthquake are taking priority.

“So right now, we’re just going to focus on the human aspect of this,” he said.

“How that fits into the broader stabilization process — I don’t think we’re analyzing it through that lens. Obviously, it’s a setback in that regard, but we’re going to get through it, and I think Venezuela’s going to emerge stronger from it despite the tragedy that it’s confronting right now.”

Trump has embraced Rodríguez’s leadership and has held up her submission to U.S. demands as a template in his war against Iran and pressure campaign against Cuba.

The president has discouraged Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado from returning to Venezuela, prioritizing relations with Rodríguez’s regime to stabilize the country.

But the earthquakes proved a breaking point for Machado, who posted a video on X that she was trying to make her way back to the country and accused the Venezuelan government of blocking her return.

“I am ready and close to Venezuela, and I will do whatever it takes for us to meet there,” she said. In December, Machado secretly escaped Venezuela, where she lived in hiding, to accept the peace prize, which she later presented to Trump as a gesture of goodwill.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the Trump administration is not looking to come to her defense or assist her return. An aide to Machado told The Hill on Wednesday she remains in Panama.

Salazar, in interviews on June 29, said Venezuela needs Machado’s leadership “to confront this tragedy and rebuild the country’s future.”

“María Corina Machado is Venezuelan. She is the legitimate leader of the opposition and does not need permission from Delcy Rodríguez to return to her country,” she wrote on X.

Gunson argued against Machado’s return to Venezuela, saying it would prove a dangerous distraction to the humanitarian effort, adding that the opposition is weak and divided.

But James Story, founding partner at Global Frontier Advisors, who served as both ambassador and chargé d’affaires to Venezuela from 2018 to 2023, said Machado’s presence could be a unifying and motivating factor toward organization and regime change.

“This tragedy happening, it’s not a political stunt to want to be with your people and offer solace and support, which is what she’s trying to do,” he said.

“From my perspective, that could actually — and I think she will — have positive momentum toward democratization because this regime has shown to be so completely inept.”

Story also said there are steps the Trump administration can take that preserve its efforts at democratic transition while not getting in the way of the humanitarian response.

Low-hanging fruit is to get the Rodríguez regime to back off censoring the internet, which could be a lifeline for families searching for loved ones. Social platform X is blocked by the country’s main internet provider — only able to be accessed through virtual private networks — while independent media, human rights groups and civil society websites also face restrictions.

“We have to be able to do a couple things at once, we have to be figuring out a path toward democracy, otherwise economic recovery will never happen,” Story said.

Venezuela earthquakes deepen rift between GOP hawks and Trump-backed regime

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