Washington, DC, January 8, 2025 — The US Senate voted today to advance a War Powers Resolution against a US war with Venezuela in a 52 to 47 vote.
“The Senate voting for the first time to advance a War Powers vote shows a growing rejection in Congress of the Trump administration’s illegal military actions in South America,” Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) Co-Director Mark Weisbrot said today. “Despite their general disregard for the rule of law, Trump’s team takes Congress seriously as a political force. That’s why Rubio, Hegseth, and White House Counsel held a secret briefing with senators on November 5, the day before the last WPR vote (like today’s) in order to block it from coming to the floor. They succeeded last time by promising that they would not have a land war or air strikes in Venezuela. According to press reports, the White House Legal Counsel also said that they did not have legal justification for land strikes in Venezuela.
“Now their promises are less believable and less important. The majority of Congress does not want war. And very importantly, as a legal matter this WPR also would prohibit the ‘blockade,’ as Trump has accurately called it, which involves seizing oil tankers, thereby depriving Venezuelan people of the scarce foreign exchange that they need for essential imports including for agriculture, food, and medicines. The blockade is another round of the sanctions that caused Venezuela to suffer the worst peacetime depression in history, three times the size of our own Great Depression, a loss of 74 percent of GDP from 2012 to 2020; and tens or even hundreds of thousands of deaths.
“Most of Congress is not on board for that either,” Weisbrot said.
“The US public does not want to see the US in another ‘stupid war,’ this time in Venezuela,” CEPR International Research Director Jake Johnston said today. “Polling done after January 3 shows that a plurality of people in the US still oppose Trump’s Venezuela policy, and the prospect of US troops being deployed to Venezuela ― as Trump and other top administration officials keep saying they are considering ― is even more unpopular. Senators seem to be getting the message.”
“Trump’s plans for ‘running’ Venezuela require a military-led blockade — a clear act of war that would be covered by the War Powers Resolution — and threatening an invasion,” Johnston said. “Today, the Senate delivered a clear message to the president that this path forward is unacceptable.”