U.S. President Donald Trump has publicly expressed interest in making Venezuela the 51st U.S. state, a claim that has been met with limited or muted response in Venezuela. According to reporting from multiple outlets, earlier remarks and long-running U.S. comments that question Venezuela’s sovereignty have drawn immediate derision from senior Venezuelan government officials, including the president, over the past quarter-century. However, in the most recent case, coverage indicates the new proposal is met with near-silence rather than an equally swift rebuttal.
The accounts agree that Trump’s statements about absorbing Venezuela into the United States are not new in the sense that they echo prior U.S. skepticism toward Venezuela’s sovereign status, which has previously provoked strong reactions in Caracas. The overall picture across sources is that Venezuelan official responses have been muted this time, contrasting with the sharper criticism reported in response to earlier sovereignty-related remarks. The reports do not provide details of negotiations or concrete follow-up steps from either government, focusing instead on the reaction—or lack of it—to the latest Trump proposal.
