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........

© The Hill