Venezuela’s acting president defends country’s territory and rejects Trump’s 51st state remarks

Venezuela ’s act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez told jour­nal­ists Mon­day that her coun­try had no plans to be­come the 51st U.S. state af­ter Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump said he was “se­ri­ous­ly con­sid­er­ing” the move.

Ro­dríguez was speak­ing at the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice in The Hague on the fi­nal day of hear­ings in a dis­pute be­tween her coun­try and neigh­bour­ing Guyana over the mas­sive min­er­al- and oil-rich Es­se­qui­bo re­gion.

“We will con­tin­ue to de­fend our in­tegri­ty, our sov­er­eign­ty, our in­de­pen­dence, our his­to­ry,” said Ro­dríguez, who as­sumed pow­er in Jan­u­ary fol­low­ing a U.S. mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion that oust­ed then-Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro. Venezuela is “not a colony, but a free coun­try,” she added.