CARACAS, VENEZUELA — The United States is weighing a preliminary proposal to establish a temporary administrative structure in Venezuela, one that would coordinate the country’s earthquake reconstruction while managing a political transition away from Chavismo, according to Spanish daily ABC, which cited sources familiar with internal discussions in Washington.
The project has not been approved by the White House and remains in an early planning stage.
What the Plan Would Involve
The proposal calls for deploying roughly 3,000 people to Venezuela, drawn largely from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — a force that is more than 97% civilian — alongside civilian specialists in infrastructure, energy, logistics, communications, urban planning, and territorial planning.
Notably, the plan would not include a military contingent or combat forces. It would carry an initial investment of close to $3 billion, directed at rebuilding roads, ports, airports, electrical grids, drinking water systems, and public buildings damaged in the crisis, alongside coordinating humanitarian aid distribution.
Sources described the model, with caveats, as comparable to the Compacts of Free Association the U.S. maintains with the Marshall Islands and other small Pacific nations — arrangements that provide financial and administrative support to sovereign states rather than direct colonial control.
One goal under discussion is establishing a provisional governing structure capable of managing the emergency, sustaining basic services, and preventing reconstruction from remaining entirely under the control of institutions inherited from Chavismo, while working toward eventual democratic elections.
The Trigger: A Devastating Earthquake
The plan’s urgency traces back to a double earthquake that struck northern Venezuela, including greater Caracas, on June 24. The death toll has continued to climb in the weeks since, reaching nearly 4,734 as of this week, according to Jorge Rodríguez, the Chavista president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, after 173 additional deaths were confirmed.
President Trump said in the aftermath that he had instructed all U.S. government agencies to move quickly to assist Venezuela.
A Transition Already in Motion
The proposal would mark the next chapter in an extraordinary year for Venezuela’s political trajectory. In January, U.S. forces captured Nicolás Maduro in a military operation, and he is now facing prosecution in the United States on drug-trafficking and narco-terrorism conspiracy charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Washington’s Trump administration has spent the months since navigating what comes next for Venezuelan governance, and the earthquake has apparently accelerated and reshaped those internal deliberations, according to the sources cited by ABC.
Trump has separately joked in public about the idea of Venezuela becoming the 51st U.S. state — a notion that, per the reporting, is not part of the actual plan under consideration by his administration.
What’s Still Unknown
Because the project remains preliminary, key questions are unresolved: whether the White House will ultimately approve it, how it would interact with Venezuela’s existing government structures and the Maduro-era National Assembly, how long such an arrangement might last, and what role — if any — Venezuelan opposition figures or international bodies would play in overseeing it.
Sociedad Media will continue following developments as the proposal moves through Washington’s internal process
