(Washington) Republican senators joined their Democratic colleagues on Thursday to advance a resolution aimed at limiting Donald Trump’s military powers against Venezuela, a snub for the American president days after the capture of Nicolás Maduro.
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The procedural motion passed with 52 votes in favor – including 5 Republican senators – and 47 against, and the text itself must now be put to a vote in the Senate next week.
If passed, it will head to the House of Representatives, where its fate is more uncertain.
Even if it is adopted by both houses of Congress, Donald Trump could impose a probably insurmountable veto on the text, the scope of which therefore remains largely symbolic.
The resolution is intended to “order the withdrawal of the armed forces of the United States from hostilities within – or against – Venezuela that have not been authorized by Congress.”
Donald Trump would therefore not be authorized to launch new military operations against Venezuela without a prior vote by parliamentarians.
In a spectacular raid on Saturday, a US special forces commando kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores in Caracas and transported them to New York to face drug trafficking charges.
Since then, Donald Trump has openly declared that the United States will “run” Venezuela and that American companies will control its oil.
The White House has also not ruled out sending new troops to Venezuelan soil for this purpose.
“Instead of responding to Americans’ concerns about the cost of living, President Trump has started a war with Venezuela,” Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, one of the authors of the resolution, said on Wednesday, denouncing the vagueness in which he believes the Trump administration kept Congress before Saturday’s operation.
For Republican Senator Rand Paul, another author of the resolution, respect for the Constitution of the United States is called into question.
“The constitutional power to initiate war is placed firmly on the shoulders of Congress,” he said on the floor Wednesday.
Several elected Republican officials had expressed their dissatisfaction after the American military operation.
But few had called for restricting Donald Trump’s powers over Venezuela, until this setback inflicted on the president on Thursday.
