At a campaign rally in Corpus Christi, Texas, former President Donald Trump displayed a tanker he said was loaded with “one million barrels of oil” from Venezuela and suggested that the South American nation could become the United States’ 51st state. He described the arrangement as the “greatest oil victory in history.”
Trump made the remarks on Tuesday, holding up the tanker as evidence of a new oil deal with a government that, according to him, had been formed after the removal of former President Nicolás Maduro.
The former president hailed the agreement as a historic breakthrough for U.S. energy interests, emphasizing the size of the shipment and the symbolic significance of a potential statehood proposal for Venezuela.
The comments came less than nine months after the United States launched an attack on Venezuela in January, an operation the source says resulted in the capture of long‑standing leader Nicolás Maduro and a shift in the country’s political leadership.
Venezuela is a major oil‑producing country in South America, and a tanker carrying a million barrels would represent a sizable export, underscoring the political and economic stakes of the proposed arrangement.
<small>Source: The Guardian — read the original story there.</small>
