Trump: 'I seriously consider making Venezuela the 51st US state'

After threats over Canada and tensions with Europe over Greenland, now US President Donald Trump is suggesting the annexation of Venezuela to the United States. In an interview with Fox News, Trump said he was 'seriously considering' the option of 'making Venezuela the 51st state of the US' without specifying how. White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly declined to comment on the US president's statements, merely stating that 'he is notorious for never accepting the status quo'.

Venezuela 'never considered' the possibility of becoming the 51st US state. Thus Delcy Rodriguez, who became interim Venezuelan president after US special forces captured in the 3 January raid Nicolas Maduro whose deputy she was, retorts to Donald Trump. In the interview, the tycoon said that 'Venezuela loves Trump' and recalled that the Latin American country has $40 trillion worth of oil resources. "This would never be considered because there is one thing that we Venezuelan women and men have is that we love the process of our independence, we love our heroes and heroines of independence," Rodriguez said. In her speech, the interim president also stated that Venezuela 'is not a colony, but a free nation'.

Meanwhile, Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado said she was ready to offer "guarantees and incentives" to interim President Delcy Rodríguez if she would contribute to a "peaceful and orderly transition to democracy" in Venezuela. In an interview with journalist Christiane Amanpour on CNN, Machado called Rodríguez's 'last chance' to be remembered as a figure capable of facilitating political change in the country. The leader of the Vente Venezuela party assured that the future transition process would not be driven by revenge: 'We will not do to them what they did to us,' she said, promising respect for the rights of those who would collaborate. Machado also called for elections 'as soon as possible', explaining that it would take between seven and nine months to organise free consultations after the appointment of a new National Electoral Council.