(Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)The Venezuelan baseball team beat Italy in the World Baseball Classic Semifinals on Monday night, prompting praise from President Trump and apparently a renewed interest in acquiring a 51st state. In a seventh-inning rally, Venezuela came back from a 1 run deficit after scoring three runs with two outs.Closer Daniel Palencia ended the game, striking out the last two hitters.WATCH:TICKET PUNCHED TEAM VENEZUELA IS HEADING TO THE #WORLDBASEBALLCLASSIC FINAL FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER! pic.twitter.com/Ulmy4XqqVK— World Baseball Classic (@WBCBaseball) March 17, 2026Venezuela will play its first World Baseball Classic Final on Wednesday against Team USA at loanDepot Park in Miami, Florida.This comes after US Forces invaded Venezuela on January 3 and captured Nicolas Maduro within a matter of hours while sustaining no losses.Trump chimed in on their win last night, commenting, “They are looking really great. Good things are happening to Venezuela lately! I wonder what this magic is all about?”“STATEHOOD, #51, ANYONE?” he added.Wow! Venezuela defeated Italy tonight, 4-2, in the WBC (Baseball!) Semifinal. They are looking really great. Good things are happening to Venezuela lately! I wonder what this magic is all about? STATEHOOD, #51, ANYONE? President DONALD J. TRUMPTrump has previously suggested that Canada or Greenland would join the United States as a 51st state.More recently, Trump has been talking about taking over Cuba after the war in Iran.(VIDEO) Trump Says He’ll Soon “Make a Deal or do Whatever We Have to Do” with Cuba – “I Think Something Will Happen with Cuba Pretty Quickly”/*! This file is auto-generated */!function(d,l){"use strict";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&"undefined"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),c=new RegExp("^https?:$","i"),i=0;i