The head of U.S. Southern Command attended a high-level meeting in Venezuela on Monday with acting President Delcy Rodríguez and other senior officials, including Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who remains the subject of a $25 million U.S. reward.
The talks focused on rescue operations, humanitarian assistance and reconstruction after the June 24 earthquakes in La Guaira.
Gen. Francis Donovan was joined by John Barrett, the U.S. chargé d'affaires for Venezuela, and Maj. Gen. Kevin Jarrard, who is overseeing U.S. search-and-rescue operations in the country, according to Venezuelan state media. The Venezuelan delegation included Cabello; Defense Minister Gustavo González López; Vice Foreign Minister for Europe and North America Oliver Blanco; and Félix Plasencia, head of Venezuela's diplomatic mission in the United States.
Venezuela's presidential press office said the meeting was held "to coordinate rescue operations, humanitarian assistance and logistics" after the earthquakes. State broadcaster VTV said both countries are working on a "new cooperation agenda" to support the reconstruction of damaged infrastructure in La Guaira, north of Caracas.
Cabello's participation drew particular attention because he remains the subject of a $25 million U.S. reward offered under the Trump administration for information leading to his arrest or conviction on drug trafficking-related charges. U.S. authorities have maintained the reward despite the recent expansion of cooperation with Venezuela's interim government on humanitarian and reconstruction efforts.
The meeting comes as Washington and Caracas continue cooperation following the U.S. capture of Nicolás Maduro in January and Rodríguez's assumption of the interim presidency. Since then, her government has worked with the Trump administration on issues including the opening of Venezuela's oil, mining and electricity sectors to foreign investment.
Rodríguez said last week that her government was in talks with the U.S. State Department and the International Monetary Fund to "recover resources" for reconstruction. She also said the Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank had offered grants and credit lines to support recovery efforts.
During a July 1 briefing, Barrett said U.S. teams remained focused on search and rescue while the broader recovery plan continued. "Right now I am focused on saving lives, but we will return to phase two and Venezuela's economic recovery," he said.
Donovan said the scale of the disaster presented a major challenge. "There are decades of underinvestment in the Venezuelan people that made this even more challenging for the current government," he said.
The meeting also comes amid growing friction between the Trump administration and opposition leader María Corina Machado. Since the earthquakes, Machado has twice attempted to return to Venezuela, but U.S. officials argued last week that doing so during the emergency response would be "counterproductive" to relief efforts.
The June 24 earthquakes have killed at least 3,535 people and injured 16,740, according to the latest official toll cited Monday.
