Venezuela’s acting president pushes back on Trump’s 51st state remarks

Venezuela will continue defending its independence, acting President Delcy Rodriguez said Monday after US President Donald Trump said he was “seriously considering” making the country the 51st US state.

“We just heard statements of Donald Trump saying that he will consider to make Venezuela the 51st state,” Rodriguez told reporters at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.

She was there for a final hearing on a decades-long dispute between her country and Guyana over the resource-rich Essequibo region.

“We love our process of independence, we love our heroes of independence, and we will continue defending the integrity, the sovereignty, the independence, our history, which is a history of glories of men and women that gave their life to make sure that we were not colonies, but our independent country,” she said.

Her remarks came after Trump made the comments in an interview with Fox News.

Following the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from his home in Caracas to the US on Jan. 2, Trump has said that he is “getting along very well with Venezuela."