Black Gold and Broken Borders: Is Trump Eyeing Venezuela as America's Next Territory?

The 53rd State? Inside Trump’s Reported Ambitions for Venezuela’s Oil Empire

An investigative look at the statements, legal barriers, geopolitical stakes, and expert warnings around the idea of folding an oil-rich country into the United States
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WASHINGTON / CARACAS

When Donald Trump floated the idea of purchasing Greenland from Denmark in 2019, most people basically treated it as a quirky aside, some harmless talking point, you know.

A line that got tossed out and then moved on. But it wasn’t really that simple. Within months, administration officials were quietly running the numbers, and by Trump’s second term, the whole angle had turned into something closer to real diplomatic pressure. In that sense, skeptics who once laughed at his territorial instincts now say they should have paused, because the pattern never really stopped.


Nicolas Maduro transferred from detention centre ahead of US court appearance
Now, a fresh idea is moving through Washington policy rooms, and it’s frankly bigger than Greenland in the way it lands in the conversation: President Trump has reportedly shown private interest in bringing Venezuela—the South American country sitting on the world’s largest proven oil reserves—into the United States as the 51st, and maybe even something like the 53rd, state. Several sources who are familiar with conversations inside the White House, speaking on condition of anonymity, describe discussions where Venezuela’s energy wealth is portrayed internally not only as a foreign policy opening but also as a kind of expansion dividend. The White House has not confirmed anything that looks like an official plan. Still, the signals, the logic, and the strategic thinking around this notion have been enough that analysts, legal scholars, and foreign governments are paying attention in a way they hadn’t before.
                           Fox News captured the moment Donald Trump appeared to doze off during a critical meeting.

What Trump Has Said — and Not Said

Trump has not publicly proposed making Venezuela a U.S. state, and it would be wrong to claim that he has.
Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro during a meeting at the National Assembly in Caracas, Aug. 22, 2025.  (Juan Barreto/AFP via Getty Images)

What he has done is more indirect and a lot harder to pin down. He has hinted, framed, and repeatedly pointed to energy dominance as a lever, sometimes in interviews, sometimes in conversations with allies, and sometimes through policy-adjacent messaging. Put differently, he doesn’t always use the word “statehood,” but the framing around it has shown up before.

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