President Donald Trump suggested earlier this week that Venezuela should be annexed by the United States. He reportedly told Fox News correspondent John Roberts—not to be confused with the chief justice—that he was “seriously considering a move to make Venezuela the fifty-first state.”
This is a far-fetched idea, to say the least. Venezuela has no interest in voluntarily becoming a U.S. state, as its acting President Delcy Rodríguez told reporters on Monday. “We will continue to defend our integrity, our sovereignty, our independence, our history,” she said, adding that Venezuela was “not a colony, but a free country.”
U.S. forces managed to infiltrate the country and arrest former President Nicolás Maduro earlier this year, which led to Rodríguez’s interim presidency. Trump suggested in January that the U.S. would play some kind of administrative role over the country after capturing Maduro, but no such direct control appears to exist. Venezuela retains every functional attribute of sovereignty.
I would welcome anyone to join the United States, so long as they do so freely, voluntarily, and democratically, and so long as they agree to live under the Constitution and its principles. I would not support the forcible annexation of any country or territory to the U.S. under any circumstances. If the Trump administration sought to seize any territory by force or coercion, the next Democratic president would be legally and morally obligated to return it to its previous status.
