{"id":943670,"date":"2026-10-28T07:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T07:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/943670\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T07:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T07:10:09","slug":"trump-shows-off-tanker-with-1m-barrels-of-oil-and-floats-venezuela-as-51st-state-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/943670\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump shows off tanker with \u20181m barrels of oil\u2019 and floats Venezuela as 51st state | Donald Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump suggested Venezuela would become the 51st state of the United States on Tuesday as the president showed off a tanker he claimed had \u201cone million barrels of oil on it\u201d from the country, nine months after deposing<\/a> its president.<\/p>\n

At a campaign rally in Corpus Christ, Texas, Trump touted a US oil deal<\/a> with Venezuela, which the US attacked in January, capturing its long-serving leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trump claims the agreement \u2013 struck with the South American country\u2019s interim government<\/a>, which is backed by Trump\u2019s administration \u2013 will cover \u201cbillions\u201d of barrels of oil.<\/p>\n

Venezuela \u201cwill become a prosperous country, and who knows? Maybe some day soon it\u2019ll become a prosperous 51st state,\u201d Trump said at the podium on Tuesday. \u201cThat\u2019s possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Venezuela is on a growing list of countries and territories Trump has spoken of acquiring, including Greenland, Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n

With tens of millions of Americans set to vote in next week\u2019s midterm elections, Trump\u2019s aggressive foreign policy \u2013 including his controversial war on Iran, and tariffs on goods from much of the world \u2013 have challenged his popularity, according to opinion polls, with his approval ratings falling to record lows.<\/p>\n

But on Tuesday, the president sought to point to the Venezuela operation as an example of his success. US fuel prices, which surged after the start of the Iran war, piling pressure on Americans\u2019 cost of living, \u201cwill soon come plummeting down\u201d, he claimed in a social media post.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re celebrating the greatest oil victory in history,\u201d he said at the rally, pointing out the ship off the Texan coast. \u201cThe oil provided is being provided to the United States at zero cost to the American taxpayer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moments before Trump took the stage in Texas, he claimed<\/a> on his Truth Social platform: \u201cBy unleashing Energy Dominance from Alaska, all the way down to Venezuela, I have made the Western Hemisphere the Energy Capital of the World.\u201d<\/p>\n

The deal has also drawn skepticism as critics complained that the Trump administration has not pushed a transition to democracy in Venezuela, where elections have not been held since Maduro was detained by US forces and taken to New York to face criminal charges after a raid on his Caracas residence.<\/p>\n

The urgency of the oil agreement stems from Trump\u2019s opting into the war with Iran in February. Gas prices have shot up nationwide after Iran closed the strait of Hormuz, a passageway for 20% of the world\u2019s oil supplies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump suggested Venezuela would become the 51st state of the United States on Tuesday as the president…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":943671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-943670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=943670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/943671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=943670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=943670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=943670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}