US Senate kills resolution that would have limited Trump action in Venezuela

The US Senate has voted against a war powers resolution that would have prevented Donald Trump from taking further military action against Venezuela without giving Congress advance notice.

Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana, who had joined three other Republicans to advance the resolution alongside Democrats last week, flipped after they said they received assurances from the Trump administration.

With Hawley and Young’s votes, the Senate was split 50-50 on the resolution. JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote. Republican senators Rand Paul, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins cast their votes for the war powers resolution alongside Democrats.

Senate Democrats forcefully condemned Republican opposition to the resolution, which aimed to check the president as he threatens further action in other countries including Greenland, Iran and Mexico.

“Make no mistake about it: this vote makes things more dangerous, not less,” Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said. “It emboldens Donald Trump to push further down this reckless path.”

Tim Kaine, the Democratic senator from Virginia who has championed several war powers measures, said he was prepared to file “a whole lot more” to block Trump from carrying out military operations without congressional authorization.

“They can run but they can’t hide,” he said, referring to Republicans, whose support would be needed to approve the resolutions.

The president had put intense pressure on his fellow Republicans to vote down the measure that would have checked his ability to carry out further military attacks on Venezuela.

Trump lashed out at the five Republican senators who joined with Democrats to advance the resolution last week. Yet even the possibility that the Republican-controlled Senate would defy Trump on such a high-profile vote revealed the growing alarm on Capitol Hill about the president’s expanding foreign policy ambitions.

Democrats forced the vote after US troops captured the deposed Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, in a surprise nighttime raid earlier this month.

Young, one of five Republicans who voted with Democrats last week, says he now sides with Trump.

In a statement, Young said he “has received assurances that there are no American troops in Venezuela” after speaking with secretary of state Marco Rubio, and that if Trump were to pursue “major military operations”, he would ask Congress “in advance for an authorization of force”.

Hawley similarly told reporters that he had been persuaded after discussion with both Rubio and Trump that the resolution was no longer necessary.

The defeat comes less than a week after the US Senate advanced a bipartisan war powers resolution to prevent Trump from taking further military action against Venezuela, after Trump authorized a pre-dawn raid to capture its leader, Nicolás Maduro, without giving Congress advance notice. The vote amounted to a rare rebuke of the president, and Trump responded by saying that the Republican senators who supported the resolution “should never be elected to office again”.

Wednesday’s vote hinged on a procedural maneuver challenging the resolution’s relevance based on the fact that no US troops were currently deployed in Venezuela. The motion allowed Young and Hawley to vote to kill the resolution without abandoning their initial objections to military action in Venezuela.

Paul, a libertarian long opposed to US military intervention abroad, called it an “absurdity” to argue Trump hadn’t already taken actions of war in Venezuela. “If we don’t know it’s a war until after all the people die ... wouldn’t it then be a little late?” he told reporters in advance of the vote.

Senator Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, said it was necessary for Congress to reassert its role and put a check on presidential authority that had “atrophied” under recent administrations.

Meanwhile, on social media, senator Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, accused Republicans of voting in favor of “forever wars, and against the best interests of the American people”.

Cecilia Nowell contributed reporting