Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodríguez publicly rejected remarks by U.S. President Donald Trump suggesting he was "seriously considering" making Venezuela the 51st U.S. state, declaring on Monday that her country has no intention of joining the union. According to Antigua News Room, Rodríguez made the comments on the final day of hearings at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where Venezuela and neighboring Guyana are locked in a long-running territorial dispute over the resource-rich Essequibo region.
"We will continue to defend our integrity, our sovereignty, our independence, our history," Rodríguez told journalists. Venezuela is "not a colony, but a free country," she added.
Trump made his remarks in an interview with Fox News on Monday, saying he was "seriously considering making Venezuela the 51st U.S. state," according to a social media post by Fox News co-anchor John Roberts. The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and the exact context of Trump's statement remains unclear. Trump has previously made similar remarks about Canada.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly later declined to elaborate on Trump's intentions during her own interview with Roberts on Fox News. Kelly said the president is "famous for never accepting the status quo" and praised Rodríguez for "working incredibly cooperatively" with the United States.
Rodríguez confirmed that Venezuelan and U.S. officials are in contact and working on what she described as "cooperation and understanding."
Rodríguez assumed power in January following a U.S. military operation that ousted then-President Nicolás Maduro. Maduro was captured on January 3 in Caracas and taken to New York to face drug trafficking charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Before addressing Trump's comments, Rodríguez appeared before the United Nations' highest court to defend Venezuela's territorial claim to Essequibo, arguing that political negotiations — not a judicial ruling — are the proper path to resolving the century-old dispute.
The Essequibo region spans approximately 62,000 square miles and comprises roughly two-thirds of Guyana's territory. It is rich in gold, diamonds, timber, and other natural resources, and sits adjacent to massive offshore oil deposits currently producing an average of 900,000 barrels per day. That output is close to Venezuela's own daily production of approximately one million barrels, and has transformed Guyana into a significant energy producer.
Venezuela has claimed Essequibo since the Spanish colonial period, when the jungle region fell within its boundaries. However, an 1899 arbitration ruling by representatives from Britain, Russia, and the United States drew the border along the Essequibo River largely in Guyana's favour.
Venezuela argues that a 1966 agreement reached in Geneva effectively nullified that 19th-century ruling. In 2018 — three years after ExxonMobil announced a major offshore oil discovery near the Essequibo coast — Guyana took the matter to the ICJ and asked judges to uphold the 1899 decision.
Tensions between the two countries escalated sharply in 2023, when Maduro threatened to annex the region by force after holding a referendum asking Venezuelan voters whether Essequibo should become a Venezuelan state.
In her address to the court, Rodríguez accused Guyana of undermining the 1966 Geneva agreement by pursuing a judicial resolution. "At a time when the mechanisms established in the Geneva agreement were still fully in force, Guyana unilaterally chose to shift the dispute from the negotiating arena to a judicial resolution," she said. "This change was not accidental; it coincided with the discovery in 2015 of the oil field that would become world-renowned."
Guyana's Foreign Minister Hugh Hilton Todd, speaking when hearings opened last week, told the panel of international judges that the dispute "has been a blight on our existence as a sovereign state from the very beginning," noting that 70% of Guyana's territory is at stake.
The court is expected to take several months to issue a final and legally binding ruling. Venezuela has maintained that its participation in the hearings does not constitute consent to, or recognition of, the court's jurisdiction.
