Good morning. The United States is out of the World Cup, routed by Belgium 4-1. The NATO summit is getting underway in Turkey. And calls are mounting for Graham Platner, a Democrat from Maine, to end his Senate campaign after a sexual assault allegation. But before we get to those stories, and other news, let’s check in on Venezuela, which is still recovering from last month’s terrible earthquakes.
Caribbean disparityThe United States funneled more than $3 billion in aid to Haiti in 2010, after a devastating earthquake left the country in shambles. It sent in 7,000 military troops to help and stopped deportations of Haitians. That’s not what has happened in Venezuela, which was shattered by two earthquakes late last month. The Trump administration has taken an estimated $8 billion in revenues from the country’s oil exports since removing its leader, Nicolás Maduro, in January. Yet the United States has thus far put up just $300 million in earthquake aid and sent a more modest military deployment, about 900 troops. And it hasn’t announced a halt to deportations. My colleague Simon Romero has covered both countries for years. He was one of the first reporters on the ground in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, in 2010. Yesterday, he wrote a fascinating story comparing the U.S. response to the earthquakes in both countries while exploring the haunting parallels between the two events: “Pancaked multistory concrete buildings, bodies flooding into overwhelmed morgues, survivors disparaging government responses, and civilians leading desperate rescues of people trapped in the rubble.” I turned to him to help us understand what’s happening in Venezuela now, and what happened in Haiti in 2010. Sam: What explains the discrepancy between the U.S. responses to these two natural disasters? Simon: At first glance, there are major differences between the two tragedies. Venezuela, despite its severe economic crash a decade ago, is still not as poor as Haiti. The death toll in Venezuela also appears to be lower — though that could change as more bodies are recovered. Venezuela also has oil — something Haiti does not have. But the U.S. approach to foreign aid has also changed immensely under the Trump administration. Aid to many poor countries, some in humanitarian crises, has been slashed. U.S.A.I.D. has been gutted. Still, the Haiti relief effort led many people to conclude that bigger isn’t always better. Giant though it was — and it did save lives immediately after the 2010 earthquake — it did not ultimately place Haiti on a stronger footing. Haiti’s government was able to limp by without doing the reforms needed to actually make it accountable to Haiti’s people.
I always read the comments on stories. One question readers have on this one is about what’s happened to the billions in Venezuelan oil revenue that the United States says it oversees. Like, where is it? There is very little transparency regarding Venezuela’s oil revenues. At first, some funds flowed into an account in Qatar. Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified in January that about $300 million from that account was disbursed to Venezuela; in February, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said $500 million was sent to Venezuela. Then the United States began depositing money from Venezuela’s oil exports into U.S. Treasury accounts. In April, a State Department official told Congress that the department had authorized $3 billion from these accounts to go to Venezuela — but the official said he did not know how much money remained in the Treasury accounts. It is also unclear who in the U.S. government exercises control over these accounts. The expectation is that the oil revenue will be used to rebuild, though we don’t know for sure. The government already faced huge challenges just to stabilize and grow the economy before the earthquakes. You were one of the first reporters to see, up close, the effects of the earthquake in Haiti. And you’ve reported from Venezuela for years. Can you give us a sense of what may lie ahead for Venezuela? The recovery and rebuilding efforts in Venezuela will take years. It will be extremely challenging. There are the issues of funding, but there’s also the issue of whether Venezuela’s government is up to the task. Venezuela still has authoritarian rule, and those in power do not face the same scrutiny from public institutions, the news media or nongovernmental organizations that public officials in democratic systems do. Alarmingly, after the quakes, images circulated on social media of Venezuelan security forces taking cash from collapsed buildings. This speaks to the fears that any aid could be siphoned off by corrupt officials. There just isn’t a great deal of trust in a government that has imprisoned political opponents and refused to accept election results. Read Simon’s story here. (We’ve made it free for you to read, along with some other stories in today’s newsletter.) For more: Several factors — the direction, the depth, the softness of the soil — combined to make the Venezuela quakes especially dangerous, as these maps show.
Graham Platner
NATO
Other Big Stories
In January, a man named David Streever sent a scathing email to the acting director of ICE after two demonstrators were shot to death in Minneapolis. He called the director a “monstrous human being” and compared him to a Nazi. In June, federal agents showed up at his door in Rochester, N.Y., serving his wife a written warning that his email might have constituted an illegal threat. Two days later, another agent tried to intercept him at a New York City hotel where he and his daughter were staying, according to a lawsuit. Yesterday, a free-speech watchdog sued the Trump administration, arguing that the agents’ actions amounted to intimidation and unconstitutional retaliation for protected speech. “When you have federal agents showing up at your home, confronting your wife, tracking you to a hotel with your daughter, that’s more than enough to send the message that you should shut up,” one of the lawyers said. Read the full story here. (This link is free.)
Want fairer college admissions? Bring back standardized testing, the editorial board writes. (This link is free.) NATO’s survival might depend less on the United States being a good ally to Europe and more on Europeans being good allies for themselves, Massimo Calabresi writes. Deeply reported journalism needs your support. The Times relies on subscribers to help fund our mission. Become a subscriber today.
Getting by: In Cuba, the U.S. oil blockade has deepened a humanitarian crisis. The Times followed a family of seven that survives on less than $60 a month. Billion-dollar scent: Bath & Body Works made a fortune on its Japanese Cherry Blossom fragrance. Can it come up with its next big thing? (This link is free.) Your pick: The most clicked link in The Morning yesterday was about a swim party for Muslim families in Texas.
7— That’s how many cans of Red Bull a passionate England supporter drank while staying up all night in a London pub to see his team defeat Mexico in a game that started at 7 p.m. on Sunday in Mexico City, or 2 a.m. Monday in London. “I’ve got heart palpitations right now,” he told The Times.
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