The Wall Street Journal editorial board was none too impressed with President Donald Trump’s latest harebrained idea for a place the United States can conquer.
“Move over Greenland and Canada. President Trump told Fox News Monday that he is ‘seriously considering’ making Venezuela the 51st state,” wrote the board. “Hmmm. Does that mean Venezuela would have to hold an election, like America’s current 50 states?”
In contrast to the other two places Trump has obsessed over annexing, Venezuela is a dictatorship — and the president recently made a show of capturing the country’s longtime strongman leader, Nicolas Maduro. But he appears to have little care for what happens next, the board continued — particularly since Venezuela’s new leader, Delcy Rodríguez, is a Maduro disciple who is continuing his autocratic policies.
“Mr. Trump doesn’t seem to mind. He praises Ms. Rodríguez with regularity and says she’s doing a ‘great job.’ He’s pleased because oil is flowing from the country again,” wrote the board. Meanwhile, “opposition leader Maria Corina Machado says she’ll return to the country this summer but she remains under threat of arrest — and at great risk of assassination.”
The bottom line, the board concluded, is that “This week Mr. Trump claimed that ‘Venezuela loves Trump’ … But its people won’t love him for long if he keeps blessing Maduro 2.0.”
All of this is unfolding as Trump continues his war in Iran, which, despite weeks of shaky “ceasefire,” has no exit strategy and has ground world oil trade to a halt by shuttering the Strait of Hormuz.
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