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venezuela
The Collective Punishment of US Sanctions in Venezuela Must End
The economic pain of sanctions is only compounding the suffering caused by last month's earthquakes.
Jul 14, 2026
More than 3,800 people have died in Venezuela’s June 24 double earthquake, with 16,700 injured, according to current government reports. A medical crisis has emerged for thousands of survivors, and 17,800 are homeless.
There are heart-wrenching reports of people trying to dig survivors out of the rubble with their hands, with dozens of children suffering amputations because they could not be reached in time.
At a time like this, Venezuelans and the international community shouldn’t have to fight for an end to the sanctions that have destroyed the nation’s economy and that hobble its recovery, nor for the country to have access to the billions of dollars worth of assets that belong to it. But we do, because the role of sanctions and frozen assets has received far too little public attention.
From 2012 to 2020, Venezuela suffered what is likely the most severe economic contraction in a depression that has occurred without a war. Data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) show a 74 percent decline in its GDP during that time. This is a loss of income about three times larger than what people here in the United States experienced during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
This was not a natural disaster like the earthquake, but a man-made one. IMF data show that 88 percent of this loss took place following US economic sanctions that began in 2015. The destruction accelerated with the Trump sanctions, starting in 2017, that cut the country off from most international finance and then from the vast majority of its foreign exchange earnings. These shocks would have pushed almost any country into a severe crisis, and that’s exactly what happened, demonstrating to the world how sanctions really could destroy an economy.
As a result, Venezuela was already facing a humanitarian crisis before the earthquakes hit. According to data from the European Commission, before June 2026 there were 7.9 million people (of a population of 28.5 million) who were in need of humanitarian assistance. Forty percent of Venezuelans were facing moderate to severe food insecurity, and about 56 percent of the population was in extreme poverty. Eighty-six percent were dependent on contaminated water sources.
Nearly half of Venezuela’s doctors, and many health professionals and other skilled workers — including 200,000 teachers — left the country as the economy fell apart.
A study I coauthored with Francisco Rodríguez and Silvio Rendón, with results published last July in The Lancet Global Health, estimated that broad unilateral sanctions like these — the vast majority of which are imposed by the United States — cause an additional 564,000 deaths annually. This is comparable to the lives lost worldwide due to armed conflict. A majority of these deaths were estimated to be among children under 5 years old.
The death rate among Venezuelans grew throughout Venezuela’s depression, with more than 100,000 additional deaths during the years (2015–20) of the economic collapse that had sanctions.
Venezuela has crucial resources that it is not being allowed to access. The United States and Europe are blocking the nation from more than $11 billion dollars that Venezuela should legally have. About $4 billion is sitting at the Bank of England; it was frozen there from Venezuela’s Central Bank as part of a regime change effort in 2019 led by the United States. Of course the UK has no right to seize and hold these assets that belong to Venezuela.
About $4.5 billion is at the IMF in the form of international assets (called Special Drawing Rights), Venezuela’s share of an allocation made to member countries in 2021. Access was blocked as part of pressure for a regime change, but the United States removed the president of Venezuela in January and has since recognized the current government of Venezuela. The IMF followed. But it is not clear how much of these assets Caracas will be able to use, and when. Venezuelans need this money — and also the gold that the UK is holding — right now in order to save lives, avoid the spread of disease, and rebuild.
There are some billions of dollars more that are being held by the Trump administration, despite an executive order stating that these funds “constitute property of the Government of Venezuela.” This is cash from the sale of Venezuela’s oil, over which the Trump administration has taken control.
The United Nations now estimates that the post-earthquake reconstruction of Venezuela will cost about $37 billion, which is an enormous sum for this country, 33 percent of current GDP. Economists and other scholars have called for the lifting of Venezuela’s “ongoing economic and financial sanctions, asset freezes” and, via a debt jubilee, “onerous debt burdens.”
An end to the economic sanctions is needed. The US Treasury has issued a license for four months that allows for earthquake relief, but that is not nearly enough. The Central Bank in Caracas is still under sanctions and these will continue to interfere with the post-earthquake recovery.
It is also well-documented that important financial transactions and even relief work can be prevented because of what is called “overcompliance.” Banks, financial institutions, and other companies avoid transactions because of real and perceived risk from sanctions, including the ambiguity of the US executive orders that authorize them.
The largest life-saving action in the near future of post-earthquake Venezuela will come from getting the biggest players in the world — the United States along with its European partners — to stop blocking access to Venezuela’s billions of dollars of assets. And to stop causing further damage and loss of life through economic sanctions.
That is how these sanctions actually work. They target and punish the civilian population in pursuit of a political goal. Once relatively rare, they have become a “tool of first resort,” according to the US Treasury — probably because the resulting fatalities are mostly unseen.
But more people each year, including members of Congress, are recognizing the economic violence, collective punishment, and lethal human consequences of these sanctions and are pushing back. As the illegality and human toll of these sanctions become more widely known, the US government will be increasingly forced to abandon them.
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'Unconscionable and Impeachable': Experts Appalled at Report of Marco Rubio Acting as Venezuela 'Viceroy'
"Trump has turned Venezuela into an effective US colony," said one critic.
Jul 11, 2026
Some critics of the Trump administration are reacting with horror to revelations that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been serving as the de facto ruler of Venezuela.
According to a Saturday report in The New York Times, Rubio for the last several months has been acting informally as the "viceroy" of Venezuela ever since its recognized president, Nicolás Maduro, was abducted by the American military in January and brought to the US to face charges related to "narco-terrorism."
The Times' sources revealed that Rubio "effectively controls Venezuela’s finances, the distribution of its natural resources, and its government" and "is deeply involved in the country’s day-to-day operations," while maintaining regular contact with acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez.
Under current arrangements, the US Treasury Department takes in revenue from Venezuela's exports, including its petroleum, and then disperses the money back to the country through its private banks with strict conditions set by Rubio over what it can be spent on.
In explaining the system, the Times likened it to "parents handing out allowances to children," adding that it gives Rubio "immense leverage over... Rodríguez, who depends on the money to pay workers and prop up the national currency."
Elizabeth Saunders, professor of political science at Columbia University, described Rubio's power over Venezuela as "insane," as well as "derelict, unconscionable, and impeachable."
"The secretary of state's time is scarce, valuable, and not outsourcable," Saunders emphasized.
Orlando J. Pérez, professor of Political Science at the University of North Texas at Dallas, said the Times report made a mockery of Rubio's professed claims to want to bring democracy back to Venezuela.
"It appears Rubio has transformed from democracy promotion warrior," Pérez commented, "to transactional realpolitik operative!"
Kenneth Roth, former executive director at Human Rights Watch, wrote that US control over Venezuela appeared similar to the kind of imperial power wielded by European nations in the 19th Century.
"Trump has turned Venezuela into an effective US colony," said Roth, "with Marco Rubio as the viceroy and Washington controlling the country’s oil revenue and dictating major foreign and domestic policies. Democracy has been relegated to the distant future."
Bradley Simpson, historian at the University of Connecticut, also saw the current US arrangement with Venezuela as a return to overt imperialism.
"We are literally back in the Dollar Diplomacy days of the 1910s," Simpson wrote, "when the United States invaded countries and took over their financial systems and ran them as effective colonies. Flagrantly illegal, enormously corrupt. Where is the organization of American states or UN in denouncing this?"
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100+ Economists, Scholars Demand End to Sanctions on Venezuela After Catastrophic Earthquakes
The experts laid out various policies they argued are "required to prevent avoidable deaths, stabilize a sanctioned economy, and allow Venezuelans to rebuild with dignity."
Jul 07, 2026
With at least 3,535 people dead, 16,740 injured, and tens of thousands still missing after a pair of major earthquakes hit Venezuela last month, over 100 economists and scholars on Tuesday jointly called for "immediate action to unfetter Venezuela's humanitarian response and reconstruction from ongoing economic and financial sanctions, asset freezes, and onerous debt burdens."
Such demands began to emerge shortly after the 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude quakes, both centered in Yaracuy, on June 24. The new letter, shared with Common Dreams by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, follows a similar message sent to President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week by CEPR, Just Foreign Policy, Latin America Working Group, Venezuelan American Community Action, Peace Action, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and a dozen other organizations.
The academics and economists, including several experts at CEPR as well as James Galbraith, Jayati Ghosh, Jason Hickel, Ann Pettifor, Jeffrey Sachs, Robert Wade, and Isabella Weber, highlighted that "Venezuela enters this disaster after years of unilateral coercive measures, financial sanctions, and export controls that have damaged its economy and infrastructure."
That includes decades of US sanctions. On top of those economic moves, Trump earlier this year sent troops into Venezuela to abduct President Nicolás Maduro, then took control of the South American country's nationalized oil industry. The New York Times reported earlier this week that the Trump administration has seized at least $8 billion worth of Venezuela's oil wealth this year.
In a Tuesday piece for Just Security, a pair of experts who signed the new letter—George Lopez, professor emeritus of peace studies at the University of Notre Dame, and Venezuelan economist and CEPR senior Research Fellow Francisco Rodríguez—noted that post-earthquakes, "the United States pledged $300 million to relief agencies, mobilized civilian and military teams to Venezuela that are trained on disaster relief, and issued a limited sanctions waiver for earthquake relief activities.
"But these measures are far from enough," they stressed, explaining that "the United Nations estimates the losses from the quakes stand at $37 billion," or 32% of Venezuela's gross domestic product. They suggested that "the United States should spearhead a major reconstruction effort and lift all remaining sanctions on the Venezuelan economy."
The US was eager to take control in Venezuela earlier this year.Now that the country is facing devastating loss after twin earthquakes, the US should spearhead a major reconstruction effort and lift all remaining sanctions.From Francisco Rodríguez and George A. Lopez:
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— Just Security (@justsecurity.org) July 7, 2026 at 9:06 AM
The broader group argued that "whatever one's position on Venezuela's internal politics, the current set of coercive economic measures directed at the country is an indiscriminate instrument. Sanctions on the central bank, public banking, oil industry, and debt transactions do not land surgically on officials; they incapacitate payment systems, raise import costs, block correspondent banking, freeze reserves, deter suppliers, and produce scarcity across an entire society. This is precisely the moment to remove any economic and financial obstacles to relief and reconstruction."
They called on the Trump administration specifically to lift all economic sanctions, "including any that may impact the Banco Central de Venezuela (BCV), government institutions, Petróleos de Venezuela, SA (PDVSA), public financial institutions, the oil and mining sectors, banking, transportation, shipping, telecommunications, travel, and all related activities," and to immediately issue "the Section 25B certification that is required to enable the BCV to receive, control, use, and transact through its accounts and assets at the Federal Reserve and US banks."
The experts also took aim at the United Kingdom and the Portuguese, calling on the governments to respectively work with "the Bank of England to ensure the immediate unfreezing of the BCV's gold reserves, worth about $5 billion and representing a third of the central bank's reported assets," as well as with Novo Banco, "to return $1.2 billion belonging to Venezuela's development bank, BANDES, and PDVSA affiliates, as set out in a 2023 court decision."
They further pressured the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to "ensure that Venezuela has full access to its approximately $5 billion in special drawing rights (SDRs) for emergency stabilization and imports," and to approve a $4 billion rapid financing instrument (RFI) disbursement immediately, using its emergency and natural disaster rationale, with no conditions."
Beyond those specific recommendations, the economists and scholars urged "a coordinated debt jubilee for Venezuela," writing that "all official bilateral creditors, multilateral creditors to the extent legally possible, and public agencies holding claims should cancel or suspend debt service, interest, penalties, and arrears, and pursue a comprehensive debt reduction consistent with a rights-based recovery and climate-resilient reconstruction."
"A new fund should be established—perhaps financed by the IMF's Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RST)—to repurchase distressed debt from the secondary market, with legal protections against holdout litigation and asset seizures," they proposed. "Money owed to creditors cannot at the same time rebuild hospitals, schools, housing, water systems, and the grid. A debt crisis in these conditions is a developmental and humanitarian crisis."
"Venezuela's people must not be made to pay twice: first through disaster, and then through sanctions, frozen reserves, and unsustainable debt servicing," they concluded. "We urge governments, international financial institutions, and creditors to act now, on the principle that lives, public health, and economic recovery take precedence over coercion and collection. Emergency liquidity, full sanctions relief, SDR access, RFI financing, and debt cancellation are not acts of charity. They are the minimum policy response required to prevent avoidable deaths, stabilize a sanctioned economy, and allow Venezuelans to rebuild with dignity."
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US Provides $300 Million in Earthquake Recovery Money to Venezuela While Sitting on $8 Billion in Stolen Oil Wealth
"Will these funds be released for the disaster response?” asked a former US ambassador to Venezuela.
Jul 06, 2026
The Trump administration has seized at least $8 billion worth of Venezuela's oil wealth since it overthrew President Nicolás Maduro in January, according to the New York Times.
Now, as Venezuela struggles to cope with a catastrophic pair of earthquakes late last month that killed at least 3,300 people and left tens of thousands more injured and homeless, and 41,000-50,000 people are reported missing, the US is providing just $300 million in humanitarian aid, a small fraction of the money it purloined.
The Associated Press reported on Monday that international rescue teams have begun to pull out as hopes of finding missing loved ones alive dwindle each day after the disaster.
Shortly after deposing Maduro, US President Donald Trump declared that the US "took over Venezuela... and the oil is flowing.”
Economist Francisco Rodriguez has found that during the first quarter of 2026, after Trump overthrew Maduro and the US began expropriating Venezuelan oil, the country experienced the lowest rate of economic growth since 2021, even as oil exports rose.
As Roxanna Vigil, a former senior sanctions policy adviser at the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, explained in an article for the Council on Foreign Relations last month, "almost 100 million barrels of oil worth an estimated $8 billion have flowed through a process marked by no transparency and minimal oversight."
"While the Trump administration has repeatedly framed this control as benefiting both countries, it has not publicly disclosed how much Venezuelan oil it has sold, how much revenue it has collected, or how it has used those funds," she added.
According to an initial report by the United Nations Development Program, the quakes caused $6.7 billion worth of damage.
Former US Ambassador to Venezuela Jimmy Story credited what he said was a “robust” US effort to provide aid. But he told Reuters that it called into question "the transparency over the oil fund," and asked, "Will these funds be released for the disaster response?”
The Times noted that the Trump administration's response to the Venezuela quakes is dwarfed by the humanitarian response to the earthquake that struck Haiti in 2010, when the US launched a more than $3 billion relief effort and deployed more than 7,000 troops.
Just 900 US troops are on the ground in Venezuela, with another 800 positioned in Puerto Rico and Curaçao to support the operation.
The Times' Simon Romero, who has reported on earthquakes in both countries, noted that the Haiti earthquake was more destructive, but said:
The parallels between the disasters are also haunting: Pancaked multistory concrete buildings, bodies flooding into overwhelmed morgues, survivors disparaging government responses, and civilians leading desperate rescues of people trapped in the rubble.
Viewed against cityscapes clouded by dust from pulverized structures, the images speak to hollowed-out first responder agencies, generalized impoverishment, and political dysfunction in both Haiti and Venezuela.
Beyond the $8 billion taken out of Venezuela since January, anti-war and human rights groups in the US have urged the Trump administration to lift the economic sanctions that have crippled the Venezuelan government, arguing that they have hobbled the recovery effort.
The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) estimated that during just four years, between 2017-20, US sanctions caused the Venezuelan state to lose between $17 billion and $31 billion in revenue.
A more recent report by the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research found that between 2017-24, Venezuela suffered an estimated $226 billion in lost oil revenue due to US sanctions, equivalent to 213% of its total gross domestic product.
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Rep. Joaquin Castro Says ICE Tried to Deport Families to Venezuela After Massive Quakes
"I am calling on the Trump administration to halt all deportations to Venezuela and to shut down the Dilley trailer prison," the Texas Democrat said.
Jul 01, 2026
Congressman Joaquin Castro on Wednesday accused US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials of moving to deport families to Venezuela immediately after last week's devastating earthquakes that rocked the country, killing nearly 2,000 people and wounding more than 10,000 others.
"Just hours after the devastating earthquakes in Venezuela that killed over 1,900 people, ICE attempted to deport children and families from the Dilley trailer prison to Venezuela," Castro (D-Texas) said on social media, referring to the Camp East Montana detention center at Fortb Bliss in El Paso, Texas.
"They were woken up in the middle of the night and sent to Arizona on their way to Venezuela," the congressman continued. "The families were ultimately sent back to Dilley, but worry that they could be deported at any time. It is unthinkable to send children and families, who have committed no crimes, into a country plunged into chaos by natural disaster."
Castro noted that "last week, 146 men, women, and children were deported back home to Venezuela hours before the earthquakes—many are suspected to have been killed."
On June 24, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake centered in San Felipe, Yaracuy—about 100 miles west of Caracas—was followed less than a minute later by a 7.5-magnitude temblor, whose epicenter was also in Yaracuy. Tens of thousands of people are still missing, an estimated 1,000 buildings are destroyed, and basic essential services like water and electricity remain offline in many affected areas.
"These actions are cruel and un-American," Castro said of the post-quake deportations. "I am calling on the Trump administration to halt all deportations to Venezuela and to shut down the Dilley trailer prison."
Camp East Montana, the nation's largest immigrant detention center, is operated by private prison profiteer Amentum Services Inc., which “has a history of health, safety, and other violations of federal law,” according to the consumer advocacy watchdog Public Citizen.
Kyle Virgien, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project, called Camp East Montana “nothing short of a civil rights catastrophe.”
The ACLU and other groups are suing ICE and other federal agencies and officials over what the plaintiffs call "inhumane" conditions at the camp.
“Since the day it opened, the facility has repeatedly made headlines for horrific rights violations and even the deaths of three detained people, yet ICE has still evaded accountability for its conduct,” Virgien said.
Castro, who has visited Camp East Montana several times, said after touring the facility in May that “when we look back at this era in American history, we will look back in shame… of the human rights abuses, most particularly against children."
Activists, including Japanese Americans interned by the US during World War II—one of which was located at Fort Bliss—have called for the closure of Camp East Montana and other ICE facilities, which many have compared with the concentration camps in which they were imprisoned in the 1940s.
After the earthquakes, advocates have also renewed demands for the US to end its economic sanctions, which have devastated Venezuela's economy and have been blamed for the deaths of tens of thousands of Venezuelans.
Earlier this year, President Donald Trump ordered an illegal invasion of Venezuela and the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro, who the US administration accuses of dubious narcoterrorism-related crimes.
While the Trump administration has issued narrow exemptions from sanctions to companies seeking to profit from Venezuela’s political crisis and copious natural resources—primarily oil—these waivers have not delivered broad relief to the people who need it most.
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As Post-Quake Misery Mounts in Venezuela, Demand Grows for Total End to US Sanctions
"Anything short of a full lifting of sanctions will hobble the overall response before it gets off the ground," said a letter sent to Trump and Rubio by a coalition of advocacy groups.
Jul 01, 2026
As death and injury tolls from Venezuela's pair of devastating earthquakes last week continue to rise, a coalition of human rights and anti-war groups called on President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday to lift the US sanctions that have crippled the nation's economy.
"As long as sweeping economic sanctions remain in place and Venezuelan assets remain frozen abroad, reconstruction will be unnecessarily delayed, and millions of people will continue to suffer," said the letter, which was written by Just Foreign Policy, the Latin American Working Group, and Venezuelan American Community Action and shared exclusively with Common Dreams.
It has been signed by more than a dozen other groups, including the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, Peace Action, and the Presbyterian Church's Office of Public Witness.
The earthquakes have killed nearly 2,300 people as of Wednesday, a death toll that is expected to rise, with the number of missing people greater than 40,000, according to an unofficial estimate. The United Nations' resident coordinator said the UN was preparing more than 10,000 body bags for the country "in anticipation of the death toll rising further."
The quakes caused $6.7 billion in damage, the equivalent of 6% of the country's gross domestic product, the UN Development Program estimated last week.
In the letter sent Wednesday, the groups welcomed the State Department's mobilization of support for Venezuela, which has included search and rescue teams, military personnel for disaster relief, and at least $150 million in humanitarian assistance through aid partners and the UN.
But they said, “It is clear that emergency relief alone will not be enough.”
"Venezuela’s recovery will require access to its own financial resources and the ability to import the equipment, construction materials, medicine, fuel, spare parts, and other goods needed to rebuild homes, hospitals, schools, roads, ports, and critical infrastructure," they said.
They said acquiring these needs has been made vastly more difficult by US sanctions that have "deliberately crushed Venezuela's economy, restricting the government's ability to import goods, maintain infrastructure, and deliver basic services to its population."
Even before the earthquakes, they pointed out, nearly a third of Venezuela's population was in need of humanitarian assistance in May, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
They said US "responsibility" for the state of Venezuela's economy has only grown since Trump's operation in January to topple and abduct President Nicolás Maduro.
Despite Venezuela's oil exports rising 25%, its economic growth plummeted to an annual rate of just 2.5% in the first quarter of 2026, according to an analysis of bank data by Francisco Rodríguez, a senior research fellow at CEPR, who said it was "the lowest rate of growth observed since the second quarter of 2021."
"The data suggests the US may be holding Venezuelan oil revenues in deposit accounts and not disbursing them to the Venezuelan government," the letter said, "currently leaving ordinary Venezuelans with too little of the promised economic improvement and directly contradicting the Trump administration's claim that Venezuelans are doing better than ever."
Given the US role in creating these conditions, as well as the role of US sanctions in turning Venezuela's economic crisis in the 2010s into one of the worst depressions of the last 50 years, the coalition said the Trump administration must not continue using economic warfare to force political concessions.
They also condemned calls from Democrats, including Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Jeanne Shaheen (NH) and House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gregory Meeks (NY) earlier this month, for the Trump administration to "exercise its leverage" on Venezuela's current government, led by President Delcy Rodriguez, to push for democratic elections.
"The primary leverage the US has long held over Venezuela includes indiscriminate economic sanctions, alongside threats of military action that are illegal under US and international law," the coalition said.
"Using economic pressure against a civilian population as a political tool was unconscionable before this earthquake," they continued. "In its aftermath, any call to tighten that leverage, or to attach political conditions to aid or in exchange for a lifting of economic sanctions must be recognized for what it is—an act of collective punishment against long-suffering civilians who should not face further indiscriminate harm due to US policy."
The coalition said that the Trump administration's limited, temporary unfreezing of some sanctions to allow humanitarian relief transactions was "wildly insufficient," as it did not unfreeze other sanctions that have hamstrung Venezuela's economy.
"The Venezuelan government must be free to receive and allocate earthquake relief and to direct humanitarian support to those who need it most," the letter said. "Anything short of a full lifting of sanctions will hobble the overall response before it gets off the ground."
They called for the US to provide "massive humanitarian assistance" without political strings attached.
They also said the US must release Venezuelan oil revenues held in US accounts and pressure other countries like the UK and Portugal to do so as well.
"This is Venezuela’s money, and it is now urgently needed," the groups said. "Withholding it during a national catastrophe of this magnitude is indefensible."
They also called on the US to lift all sanctions on Venezuela, which they said "impede the delivery of humanitarian goods, reconstruction materials, and financial transfers needed for disaster response and economic recovery."
"The United States has a short window to demonstrate that its relationship with the Venezuelan people is not merely transactional," the letter concluded. "The scale of aid must match the scale of the harm the United States has played a role in creating. Anything less would confirm what many Venezuelans already fear: that American concern for their welfare begins and ends where American geopolitical and economic interests do."
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Venezuelans Just Deported by Trump Among Tens of Thousands Missing After Earthquakes
As the death toll continued to rise, the US Department of Homeland Security said that "when an individual is no longer in ICE custody, ICE is no longer responsible for them."
Jun 29, 2026
Tens of thousands of people still haven't been found after a pair of devastating earthquakes in Venezuela last week—including some Venezuelans who had just been deported from the United States as part of President Donald Trump's mass deportation push and were being held in a hotel when the temblors hit, The Associated Press revealed Monday.
There were 146 Venezuelans, including 19 women and seven children, on a deportation flight that arrived just hours before the 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes, the AP reported, citing a Human Rights First initiative that has tracked thousands of such flights under Trump. They were brought to Hotel Santuario La Llanada in La Guaira, which collapsed because of the quakes.
"Lisbeth Portillo, 58, said she escaped the rubble from the hotel with about 20 other deportees who walked the streets looking for help. They saw people running, some naked and others barefoot as they emerged from the rubble of the building," according to the outlet.
Another deportee who survived, 24-year-old Jenny Rodriguez, told Telemundo: "I was trapped under the rubble. A colleague who had been on the same flight came by; I managed to free my hand from the debris, grabbed him by the trousers, and begged for help... Thanks to God—and to him—I was able to get out of there."
Oswadeliz Núñez Ramírez is still "frantically searching for her son," 28-year-old Daniel Alejandro Núñez Ramírez, who was also on the deportation flight and at the hotel, the Miami Herald reported Monday. A member of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service who called himself "Jonathan" told her that he had pulled her son from the rubble, but, "skeptical of the official account, his mother has searched every hospital, clinic, and sector of La Guaira and Caracas without success."
While US Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to the AP's request for comment, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the agency, told the Herald: "This flight safely reached Venezuela, and all illegal aliens on board were returned home. When an individual is no longer in ICE custody, ICE is no longer responsible for them."
Venezuelan National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez said Monday that the earthquake has left at least 1,719 dead, 5,034 injured, and 15,866 displaced from their homes.
UN News noted Monday that the ongoing search and rescue effort involves more than 2,000 workers from over two dozen countries, plus over 160 dogs, and Gianluca Rampolla, the United Nations resident coordinator in Venezuela, "reported that the UN and Venezuelan authorities had agreed to procure 10,000 body bags in anticipation of the death toll rising further."
Rampolla said that "together with the search and rescue operations, we are focusing, together with the government, on providing emergency healthcare, shelter, food assistance, water and sanitation, and logistical support to ensure not only the storage but also the distribution of all the supplies arriving in the country, as well as protection."
As of Monday evening, more than 44,000 people remained missing, according to a reunion website for families. As NBC News detailed Monday:
Even as the chances of finding survivors diminished with every passing hour, Venezuelans continued using shovels, ropes, and their bare hands as they dug through mountains of collapsed concrete.
They were joined by a growing number of international rescue teams, who pulled multiple survivors from the wreckage, offering desperate families a rare glimmer of hope.
Among the rescues, teams from the United States, France, and Venezuela pulled a man and his son from the ruins Sunday morning after they had spent four days trapped beneath the rubble.
Organizations including US-based peace group CodePink and the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington, DC-based think tank, have called on the US and allied countries to lift all sanctions against Venezuela in the wake of the earthquakes.
Trump earlier this year directed an illegal invasion of Venezuela, during which US forces killed scores of people and abducted President Nicolás Maduro, then seized control of the South American country's nationalized oil industry.
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Advocates Renew Call for End to US Sanctions After Devastating Venezuela Earthquakes
"This is the time for cooperation, compassion, and respect for Venezuela’s sovereignty," said CodePink.
Jun 25, 2026
Human rights groups on Thursday implored the United States and allied countries to lift all sanctions against Venezuela—which experts say have already killed tens of thousands of people—as the beleaguered South American country reels from Wednesday's devastating earthquakes.
At least 188 people are dead and over 1,500 others injured, with those figures almost certain to rise, following a 7.2-magnitude temblor centered in San Felipe, Yaracuy—about 100 miles west of Caracas—and a 7.5-magnitude quake that struck less than a minute later, also in centered in Yaracuy.
US President Donald Trump, who authorized the illegal invasion of Venezuela and abduction of President Nicolás Maduro earlier this year, wrote on social media after the earthquakes that his administration “stands ready, willing, and able to help."
“We will be there for our new and great friends," Trump claimed.
Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro's vice president and acting president since his ouster, thanked the Trump administration for "offering support and solidarity to the people of Venezuela in the face of this tragedy that has plunged us into mourning."
However, US sanctions—first imposed during then-President George W. Bush's second term while Hugo Chávez was leading Venezuela and ramped up under the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations—remain in place, complicating relief efforts after one of the country's worst-ever natural disasters.
While the Trump administration has issued narrow exemptions from sanctions to companies looking to profit from Venezuela's crisis and copious natural resources, primarily oil, these waivers have not delivered broad relief to the people who need it most.
"Today’s catastrophe makes clear what we have long argued: When a country is deliberately weakened through economic warfare, its ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters is also weakened," the US-based peace group CodePink said in a statement. "The United States has a responsibility to help address the humanitarian consequences of the policies it has imposed."
🇻🇪 CODEPINK extends our deepest condolences to the people of Venezuela following the devastating earthquakes that have taken hundreds of lives, injured thousands, and left entire communities in urgent need of assistance.Our full statement: buff.ly/QzYcQ3p
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— CODEPINK (@codepink.bsky.social) June 25, 2026 at 2:22 PM
CodePink continued:
Too often, we’ve seen the US and other Western countries exploit natural disasters like this in order to deepen foreign control. In Haiti, the US and its allies have repeatedly pushed militarization and politically conditioned aid instead of genuine recovery led by the country itself. In this moment, the world must refuse to allow Venezuela to be forced down the same path.
We also call on the administration to immediately lift all US sanctions on Venezuela and release Venezuelan funds under US jurisdiction so they can be used for emergency relief, reconstruction, and recovery.
"This is the time for cooperation, compassion, and respect for Venezuela’s sovereignty," CodePink added. "We urge the international community to support relief efforts and stand with the Venezuelan people as they rebuild their homes, their communities, and their future."
The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), a Washington, DC-based think tank, said Thursday that "while the Trump administration has issued a series of general licenses to allow foreign businesses and banks to operate in Venezuela in spite of US sanctions, the continued existence of these sanctions significantly discourages international economic and financial actors from expanding operations there."
CEPR co-director Mark Weisbrot said that “we must remember that Venezuela suffered the worst depression in the history of the world, without a war, due to illegal US economic sanctions."
"This deadly destruction was not a mistake, but an expected result that would happen to any country that was cut off by sanctions from the international financial system, and also from the vast majority of its foreign exchange earnings from exports," he continued.
According to a 2019 CEPR report, as many as 40,000 Venezuelans died due to sanctions during the previous two years. The sanctions ostensibly targeted Maduro's government, but made it much more difficult for millions of people to obtain food, medicine, and other necessities.
“Tens of thousands, and more likely hundreds of thousands, of Venezuelans died as a result of those sanctions," Weisbrot said Thursday. "The United States is therefore obligated to help prevent further loss of life in Venezuela."
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Thousands Feared Dead After Back-to-Back Earthquakes Devastate Venezuela
One resident of Venezuela's capital described the scene in her area as "like a horror movie" as rescue teams searched the rubble of collapsed buildings for survivors.
Jun 25, 2026
Emergency workers rushed to search the rubble of collapsed buildings in and near the Venezuelan capital of Caracas on Thursday after back-to-back powerful earthquakes rocked the country, killing at least 164 people—a toll that's expected to reach the thousands as victims' bodies are recovered from the wreckage.
The disaster began on Wednesday afternoon local time as a 7.2-magnitude earthquake hit around 100 miles west of Caracas. Just 39 seconds later, a 7.5-magnitude quake struck, compounding the damage. One Caracas resident told Reuters that the aftermath of the quakes "was like a horror movie."
The Associated Press reported that rescue teams were seen "using power tools to work their way into piles of rubble where buildings once stood."
"Panicked residents of the capital were sent pouring into the streets, and after the quakes many people walked among the debris searching for the missing among collapsed buildings and toppled electric poles," the outlet added. "Footage on state TV showed three children, covered in dust but alive, pulled from the rubble in La Guaira state... one of the areas hardest hit by the quakes because of the large number of collapsed buildings."
Video captured the first moments of two powerful earthquakes striking Venezuela, triggering panic as people fled for safety as buildings collapsed around them. pic.twitter.com/ZadZ6VNrNo
— Al Jazeera Breaking News (@AJENews) June 25, 2026
Acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez, who took charge following the US abduction of President Nicolás Maduro in January, said that "dozens of buildings have collapsed" in La Guaira.
"We are currently carrying out intensive rescue operations to save lives," Rodríguez added.
Venezuela looks like it was BOMBED after two MASSIVE 7.1 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes.
Pray for the people, this is really bad pic.twitter.com/pIw8ywXzYe
— Ryan Rozbiani (@RyanRozbiani) June 25, 2026
US President Donald Trump, who authorized the illegal assault on Venezuela and kidnapping of Maduro earlier this year, wrote on social media that his administration "stands ready, willing, and able to help."
"I have instructed all agencies of our government to get ready to move quickly," Trump wrote. "We will be there for our new and great friends. Early reports are not good!!!"
Tom Fletcher, the United Nations' emergency relief coordinator, said in a statement Thursday that "we are fully mobilized to support the people of Venezuela following the deadly and devastating earthquakes that hit the country."
"The coming days will require a massive collective effort to support the government-led response and help communities," Fletcher added. "Even before these earthquakes, nearly 8 million people in Venezuela were in need of humanitarian support. This disaster risks deepening existing vulnerabilities. Sustained international support for humanitarian organizations responding on the ground is essential and urgent."
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Donald Trump: President of Endlessly Stupid Wars
The American way of war, war, war.
Jun 22, 2026
That subhead of mine is certainly repetitive of me (me, me), but how can you not be repetitive in the distinctly repeated world of Donald J. Trump (Trumped, Trumped)? I mean, twice already and who really knows what’s to come?
Here’s the question nobody seems to be asking right now, though: What country will Donald Trump attack next? Yes, at the moment, he’s still wildly wound up in his Iran war/truce/peace/or you name it (tomorrow). Yesterday, it was, of course, Venezuela, and next week it might be Cuba or Greenland, or who on (or off) this planet knows where? And I haven’t even mentioned his military’s ongoing bombing runs in Somalia, which are barely noticed in the mainstream media here. And who knows what I’ve forgotten or what to expect in this increasingly bizarre world of ours from the president who swore repeatedly in his third election campaign that he would never, never, never go to... yes, of course, war?
Hey, only the other day, Secretary of War (a title which, of course, couldn’t be blunter in the age of You Know Who) Pete Hegseth warned that “what happens with the future of Cuba is in the hands of the president of the United States and the leadership of Cuba. No matter what, the Department of War is going to be prepared and postured for any possible contingency.”
Ah, yes, any possible contingency except one, of course: victory (which, since the Second World War, just hasn’t been in the American vocabulary) or, for that matter, peace. I mean what could possibly go wrong in a world that now, remarkably enough, has its first trillionaire, Donald Trump’s (sometimes) buddy Elon Musk? (On that, Senator Elizabeth Warren commented all too aptly: “I want to be clear: This is not just some fluke. It is a feature of a rigged economy.”)
What, in fact, could possibly go wrong on such a rigged planet? I’m sure Donald Trump and Elon Musk couldn’t imagine. What could go wrong on a world in which no American president ever seems to realize that wars are simply never to be won by this country, no matter its power and the ever-ballooning size of the Pentagon budget, now possibly heading for -- ah, yes, talking about trillionaires! -- $1.5 trillion yearly (and, no, that is not a typo), if Donald Trump has anything to say about it? And in Congress, mind you, that’s still referred to as “defense” spending.
What could possibly go wrong when launching a war on Iran, a country that’s slightly less than 6,500 miles from Washington, D.C.? That’s so much less dumb of Donald Trump than Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch a disastrous war right on his country’s border with Ukraine. At least, Iran is so far away that you could ask: Whose lives could possibly be disturbed by it (other than Iranians, their neighbors, or of course, anyone who drives a car or a truck that isn’t electric and has had to pay for the gas that hasn’t been making its way through the Strait of Hormuz these days, months, or for all we know years)?
In fact, here’s a suggestion for President Trump: at only 6,500 miles, Iran really shouldn’t be considered quite far enough from Washington to truly, truly count as the world’s best enemy. What about Pakistan instead, since it’s 7,000 miles away? Wouldn’t that make better sense? Especially since, as Zia ur-Rehman of the New York Times reported recently, with the planet heating up as distinctly as it is, one district in southern Pakistan hit a record 124.7 degrees Fahrenheit as May ended. And you (and Donald Trump) know just what that means: ever more Pakistanis will feel that they have to leave their country and head elsewhere and why not head for the United States of America, only 7,000 miles away? So, Donald, how about starting another war there and while you’re at it, as wars do so effectively, pour yet more fossil fuels into the atmosphere, ensuring that Pakistan will indeed get ever hotter (and hotter and hotter) even faster (and faster and faster)?
And honestly, to ask a perfectly realistic question: if President Trump can’t continue to stack up wars one atop another, how in the world will he ever get Congress to pass his next Pentagon budget for that $1.5 trillion? We certainly need another war (or two or three) for that to happen and, honestly, Greenland’s too damn cold and minimally populated and Cuba’s too close and a mere island to truly count.
Wait! Let’s look at the positive side of things for a moment. With Trump and crew ready to fossil-fuelize this planet in striking ways, as the Department of War has made clear, “President Donald J. Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth are ushering in a new era characterized by peace through strength.” And what more could you ask for than that, though “peace,” of course (because definitions matter) should be “war” and “strength” should mean another 1.5 trillion taxpayer dollars for the Pentagon to blow on yet more disastrous conflicts globally, right?
Who could possibly disagree with such a definition of peace? Anyone who does deserves to be sent to Iran, Greenland, or Cuba, just to find out what peace truly feels like.
Yes, give our president full credit. He lends “brink” new meaning and what could possibly go wrong on a planet distinctly on the brink of... well, who knows quite what but nothing good -- that indeed did just get its first trillionaire. I can’t imagine, can you?
And given all of that, let me end on a little more upbeat news. As the BBC recently reported, “The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has declared that El Niño conditions are now under way in the tropical Pacific [Ocean], with sea surface temperatures having risen sharply in recent months.” And even better, assume that it could prove to be “a so-called ‘super’ El Niño,” and even possibly “among the strongest ever recorded.”
So, count on this: our planet is going to get hotter and hotter and hotter. And Donald Trump is still doing his damnedest to shut down green energy of any kind and make more war. So, what could possibly go wrong when we have a president at the brink (of who knows what) and a planet at the brink (of who knows what’s next)?
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