Senate advances measure to curb Trump’s use of force in Venezuela
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 14 hours ago
- 4 min read
By ROBERT JIMISON
The Senate agreed Thursday to debate a war powers resolution aimed at curbing President Donald Trump’s use of military force in Venezuela, with five Republicans joining Democrats in a rare bipartisan rebuke of the White House.
The measure advanced on a vote of 52-47. The resolution, which would still have to be debated and pass, would force Trump to seek congressional authorization for continued U.S. military operations in Venezuela.
While the resolution has little chance of enactment or imposing any constraint on Trump, it marked a rare assertion of congressional authority over the president’s war powers and reflected worries in his own party about his bellicose action in Venezuela, undertaken with no consultation or authorization by Congress.
Less than a week earlier, Trump surprised Congress and the nation with a military raid that removed Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and as he and top administration officials have refused to rule out further military operations there, including American boots on the ground.
Democrats had hoped that the weekend raid inside Venezuela, a dramatic escalation from the maritime strikes in international waters that the military had been carrying out, would persuade more Republicans to join with them in a move to claw back some of Congress’ war-making authority. That ended up being the case.
Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Todd Young of Indiana and Josh Hawley of Missouri — all of whom had opposed similar measures in the past — joined all Democrats in backing the measure. So did Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who had previously backed war powers measures.
“The circumstances have now changed,” Collins said in a statement after casting her vote in support of the measure. “While I support the operation to seize Nicolás Maduro, which was extraordinary in its precision and complexity, I do not support committing additional U.S. forces or entering into any long-term military involvement in Venezuela or Greenland without specific congressional authorization.”
Leaders on the resolution, including Sens. Tim Kaine of Virginia, Adam Schiff of California and Chuck Schumer of New York, all Democrats, together with Paul, argued that the scale of the operation constituted an act of war requiring congressional approval.
“Make no mistake: Bombing another nation’s capital and removing their president is an act of war, plain and simple,” Paul said before the vote.
The mission to oust Maduro and his wife, who were taken to New York for criminal prosecution, was carried out over the weekend by elite Army Delta Force commandos and with more than 150 military aircraft, including drones, fighter planes and bombers, taking part in the mission to disable radar and air-defense systems.
It was the largest U.S. military action of its kind in years and resulted in more than 80 deaths. Some U.S. service members were also injured. Key members of Congress were not informed of the mission, a break with decades of tradition and statute that requires congressional notice for covert operations.
That has frustrated Democrats and a small group of Republicans who have raised concerns since Trump began authorizing strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean in early September.
Kaine rejected the claim by senior Trump administration officials that Saturday’s raid was a law enforcement operation and therefore required no consultation or authorization by Congress.
“This is not an arrest warrant. This is far bigger than that,” he said. “And it’s the kind of hostilities that Congress specifically had in mind when they wrote the War Powers Resolution of 1973.”
Senior Trump administration officials have given dozens of classified briefings to various groups of lawmakers about the operations, but no public hearings or formal debate over authorization have taken place.
“An embargo is an act of war. Repeated military strikes followed on by an invasion is an act of war,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said before the vote. He also warned that the actions ran the risk of escalating tensions with global adversaries, namely China and Russia.
But most Republicans defended the action and many argued that Congress had no role in the matter.
Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, who has been an outspoken supporter of Trump’s actions to curb the influx of narcotics into the U.S., said before the vote that lawmakers backing the measure were merely trying to “slap the president in the face.”
“This vote and similar votes before it are an abuse of the War Powers Act,” Risch said moments before the roll call. “The United States conducted a limited operation to remove an indicted narco-terrorist.”
Still, the vote reflected a shift after months in which many Republicans had privately expressed concern about the administration‘s lack of consultation with lawmakers but had declined to impose limits on Trump.
“President Trump campaigned against forever wars, and I strongly support him in that position,” Young said in a statement. “A drawn-out campaign in Venezuela involving the American military, even if unintended, would be the opposite of President Trump’s goal of ending foreign entanglements.”