The interim president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, held telephone calls with US President Donald Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Friday, securing pledges of emergency assistance after two powerful earthquakes struck the country’s northern coast. According to statements from Caracas, Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the deployment of search-and-rescue specialists, specialised equipment, and support for temporary shelters, while Sheinbaum announced that Mexican military personnel and humanitarian supplies were already operating in affected zones. The US has separately committed $150 million in aid and directed the Pentagon to provide aircraft for damage assessment and medical evacuation, with a general from US Southern Command already in Caracas to coordinate field operations.

Official figures released by the Venezuelan National Assembly put the death toll at 920, with over 3,300 injured and as many as 50,000 people reported missing. The back-to-back tremors of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 on Wednesday caused widespread building collapses in the coastal state of La Guaira and parts of Caracas, prompting the interim government to militarise the hardest-hit area. Rescue teams from more than a dozen countries, including Colombia, El Salvador, and Russia, have arrived or are en route, though local residents in some coastal communities have expressed frustration at the pace of operations, with volunteers resorting to picks and shovels.

Viewed from Washington, the rapid and high-profile assistance marks a continuation of the strategic recalibration that began in January, when US forces captured former president Nicolás Maduro and Rodríguez assumed power. Since then, Caracas has restored diplomatic relations with Washington, opened its oil sector to international investment with priority for American firms, and received repeated public praise from Trump. In remarks to farmers on Thursday, the US president linked the aid directly to this new alignment, stating, “We assumed Venezuela in less than a day, and the oil is flowing, and we’re getting along very well with them.” For the interim government, the disaster response has become a vehicle to demonstrate the benefits of its break with the previous order, with Rodríguez publicly thanking Trump for a “gesture of friendship and cooperation.”

Moscow, which had been a key backer of the Maduro government, offered condolences through President Vladimir Putin and signalled readiness to provide assistance, though no details of a Russian deployment have been confirmed. Analysts in Latin American capitals note that the crisis is accelerating Venezuela’s integration into a US-led humanitarian and economic architecture, while also drawing in regional powers such as Mexico, which sent 261 military personnel, 18 canine teams, and over 19 tonnes of medical supplies and equipment. The immediate focus remains on the 72-hour window for finding survivors, with the interim government establishing a centralised storage hub in Caracas and calling on residents to report structural damage to buildings that remain standing. Further bilateral coordination meetings are expected in the coming days as international teams expand their search grids.