The Hague, NetherlandsAP —
Venezuela’s acting president Delcy Rodríguez told reporters on Monday that President Donald Trump has no plans to become the 51st state of the United States.
Rodriguez was speaking at the International Court of Justice in The Hague on the final day of hearings in the dispute between her home country and neighboring Guyana over the mineral and oil-rich Essequibo region.
“We will continue to defend our integrity, our sovereignty, our independence and our history,” said Rodriguez, who came to power in January after a U.S. military operation ousted then-President Nicolas Maduro. Venezuela is “not a colony, it is a free country,” she added.
President Trump told Fox News earlier Monday that he is “seriously considering making Venezuela the 51st state of the United States,” according to a social media post by Fox News co-anchor John Roberts.
The exact context of President Trump’s remarks remains unclear. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story.
President Trump has made similar comments about Canada.
White House press secretary Anna Kelly later declined to comment on Trump’s plans in an interview with Roberts on Fox News. Kelly said the president is “famous for never accepting the status quo” and praised Rodriguez for being “incredibly cooperative” with the United States.
Rodriguez went on to say that Venezuelan and U.S. officials have been in contact and are working on “cooperation and understanding.”
Before addressing Trump’s comments, Rodriguez defended his country’s claim to Essequibo before the United Nations’ highest court, telling the justices that political negotiations, not judicial decisions, would resolve the century-old territorial dispute.
The 62,000 square mile territory, which covers two-thirds of Guyana, is rich in gold, diamonds, timber and other natural resources. It is also located near large offshore oil deposits, currently producing an average of 900,000 barrels per day.
This production is close to Venezuela’s 1 million barrels per day, turning one of South America’s smallest countries into a major energy producer.
Venezuela has considered Essequibo its own territory since the jungle area entered its territory during Spanish colonial times. However, an 1899 decision by British, Russian, and American arbitrators drew the border along the Essequibo River, primarily in favor of Guyana.
Venezuela argued that a 1966 agreement signed in Geneva to resolve the dispute effectively nullified 19th-century arbitration. But in 2018, three years after ExxonMobil announced a significant oil discovery off the coast of Essequibo, Guyana’s government went to the International Court of Justice and asked the judges to uphold the 1899 ruling.
Tensions between the two countries further escalated in 2023, when Maduro, Rodríguez’s predecessor, threatened to annex the region by force after holding a referendum asking voters whether Essequibo should become part of the Venezuelan state. Maduro was captured on January 3 during a US military operation in the Venezuelan capital Caracas and taken to New York on drug trafficking charges. He pleaded not guilty.
Rodriguez did not mention the referendum in his remarks, but told the court that the 1966 agreement was intended to enable negotiations between Venezuela and Guyana to resolve territorial disputes. And she accused the Guyanese government of undermining the agreement with its “opportunistic” decision to ask the courts to address the dispute.
“Guyana unilaterally chose to move the dispute from the negotiation forum to a judicial resolution when the mechanisms established in the Geneva Accords were still in full force,” she said. “This change was no coincidence; it coincided with the discovery of a world-famous oil field in 2015.”
During a public hearing last week, Guyana’s Foreign Minister Hugh Hilton Todd told a panel of international judges that the dispute “has been prejudicial to our existence as a sovereign nation from the beginning.” He said 70% of Guyana’s territory is at risk.
It is expected to take several months before the court issues a final, legally binding ruling in the case.
Venezuela cautioned that participation in the hearing does not imply consent or recognition of the court’s jurisdiction.
