At a midterm rally at the Port of Corpus Christi, Texas, on October 27, 2026, Trump pointed to a tanker offshore. “You have a little ship. See that little ship out there? It's got one million barrels of oil on it from Venezuela,” he said, calling it “the greatest oil victory in history.” He added, “To the victor belong the spoils, right? But thanks to our big victory in our recent war with Venezuela,” and said the oil was “being provided to the United States at zero cost to the American taxpayer,” according to the Roll Call Factbase transcript.
He then floated absorbing the country. “It will become a prosperous country, and who knows, maybe someday soon it will become a prosperous 51st state. That's possible. Let's make it. Let's make it the 51st state. And instead of a president, we'll have an election for a governor. How about that?” Later in the speech he returned to it, telling oilman Harold Hamm, “let's make it, Harold, the 51st state.”
At a second rally that day in Lubbock, Trump described the cargo as a present. “I accepted a shipload of one million barrels of oil, a gift from Venezuela -- that we're giving to Texas, by the way,” he said. “Gift” is Trump's word; no Venezuelan statement or document in the material reviewed for this entry confirms that the oil was given rather than sold or delivered under an existing oil arrangement (see Trump Announces 'the Biggest Oil Deal in World History': Majority US Control of Venezuelan Reserves, Granted by the Government He Installed).
The Independent, which placed the 51st-state remark at his rally for Ken Paxton's Senate campaign (the transcripts put it in Corpus Christi), reported that the remarks came “just nine months after his administration's deposing” of Nicolás Maduro, and that Trump used the trip in part to highlight an arrangement for Venezuela to process more of its crude oil in Texas refineries. Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared briefly on stage with him at both stops.
The tracker records this as campaign rhetoric; none of the sources reviewed describes a formal proposal to annex Venezuela. See also Trump Launches a Military Operation to Capture Maduro and Says, 'We're Going to Run the Country' and Trump Calls the January Venezuela Operation 'a War' and the Oil 'Spoils.' His Own Officials Had Told the UN and Congress It Was Law Enforcement..