By Yuleidys Hernandez Toledo on May 11, 2026
Acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez at the Hague
This is acting Venezuelan response to the notion that Venezuela would become the 51st state of the US, “We will continue to defend [territorial] integrity, sovereignty, and independence. Our history, which is a history of glory, of men and women who gave their lives to make us not a colony but a free country.”
The above statement is part of the response given on Monday, May 11, by the Acting Head of State when asked about remarks attributed to Donald Trump by an American journalist, suggesting that he was “seriously considering” making Venezuela the 51st state of the United States.
Upon leaving the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands, where she defended Venezuela’s historical and legal rights over Guayana Esequiba, she noted that they had gone to that forum precisely to “defend sovereignty, to defend our process of independence.”
Immediately, in response to the question posed to him, he emphatically stated: “That is not on the table, it would never be on the table, because if there is one thing Venezuelans have, it is that we love our independence process; we love our heroes and heroines of the Independence.”
“President Trump knows. We have been working on a diplomatic agenda of cooperation. That is the course, that is the path,” he added.
“Venezuela, certainly, is the country with the largest oil reserves on the planet and also one of the largest gas reserves. The path is cooperation for understanding between countries,” she concluded.
On Monday, alleged statements that Trump reportedly made to a journalist from the U.S. network Fox, John Robert, went viral, in which he claimed, according to the aforementioned media outlet’s post on X, that he is “seriously considering” making Venezuela the 51st state of the U.S., pointing to the country’s enormous oil reserves and saying that there is “$40 trillion in oil there.”
Source: Diario VEA, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English