On Tuesday, President Donald Trump declared that he wants to create a 51st state. He was speaking at a rally in Corpus Christi, Texas, when he revealed that he had “breaking news.”
“We have a little breaking news,” Trump told rallygoers assembled at the Port of Corpus Christi. “You have a little ship. See that little ship out there? It’s got one million barrels of oil on it from Venezuela.” This represents the president’s latest move in his flailing effort to bring down fuel prices that have skyrocketed due to his war on Iran. “We’re celebrating the greatest oil victory in history,” he said. “To the victor belong the spoils, right?” He went on to claim that the U.S. has built a “great” relationship with Venezuela after Trump’s “great victory” over it, saying that it would soon become a prosperous country, “and maybe someday soon it would become a prosperous 51st state. Let’s make it the 51st state, and instead of a president, we’ll have an election for a governor. They have a lot of oil.”
This isn’t the first time Trump has spoken of 51st states. Over the course of his second term, he has strained relations with U.S. allies by suggesting that Canada or Greenland could become states, has repeatedly provoked Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney by referring to him as “governor,” and has offered up Venezuela’s possible statehood before. He’s made similar territorial assertions about the Panama Canal and other regions, and has been criticized for pushing an expansionist agenda.
Trump’s much-touted oil imports come as the price of oil has skyrocketed to five-month highs, surpassing $100 per barrel. Because of this, his economy reached a new milestone this week, when it was revealed that the average price of gas over the course of his second term has surpassed the average during President Joe Biden’s administration. Trump’s war on Iran has also shot up the price of diesel, which has driven persistent inflation and prompted anger among voters in farming states struggling under high fuel costs. As a result, Trump has been desperate to bring prices down via a number of stopgap solutions. For example, his administration lifted restrictions on using red dye diesel for transport, only to find that the plan had little impact and could actually cost truckers more money in the long run. Then he struck a deal to buy oil from Russia in contradiction to U.S. law, a move that was criticized as both ineffective at alleviating prices and tantamount to providing aid to one of America’s greatest adversaries.
The one million barrels Trump hailed in Corpus Christi would cover roughly 1/20th of the United States’ daily oil usage. Because of it, gas and diesel prices would come down “very quickly,” Trump told the crowd. “It’ll be like a blink.”