Need for using the article "the" before "United States of America"? [duplicate]

Solution 1:

The is used in front of countries that have:

• plural names:
  the Netherlands

• a general geo-political noun of place, e.g. republic, emirate, kingdom, state:
  the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom.

On a related note, see this post on the capitalization of articles in names:

You only capitalize The when it is the first word in a title of book or a play. . . . In contrast, the word the is not normally capitalized in front of proper nouns that aren’t titles, like . . . the United States of America. . . .

Solution 2:

Most country names are only a single word, or might include a geographical description (eg North Korea, South Korea).

The United States of America is plural. It means The States of America which are united. You cannot use States without The.

Other examples are:

The United Kingdom
The United Arab Emirates
The Netherlands (literally the Low Lands, also known as Holland)

Groups of islands also take The:

The Phillippines
The Azores