Senate Republicans have voted down a bill that would have curtailed President Donald Trump’s use of force against drug cartels after he authorised strikes on boats suspected of engaging in drug trafficking off the coast of Venezuela.
The bill from Democratic Senators Adam Schiff of California and Tim Kaine of Virginia had called for the United States military to withdraw from “hostilities that had not been authorized by Congress” including those against “any non-state organization engaged in the promotion, trafficking, and distribution of illegal drugs and other related activities”.
The bill also noted that the “designation of an entity as a foreign terrorist organization or specially designated global terrorist provides no legal authority for the President to use force” against them.
While Democrats invoked the War Powers Resolution of 1973 to force a vote in the Senate, the bill was rejected with a vote of 48 to 51 on Wednesday.
Under the US Constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war, but Trump has used his authority as president to launch an unofficial war on drug cartels.
Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the “unchecked strikes in the Caribbean risk destabilising the region, provoking confrontation with neighbouring governments and drawing our forces into yet another open-ended conflict … because of one man’s impulsive decision-making”.
Trump earlier this year designated Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, El Salvador’s MS-13, and Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel as “foreign terrorist organizations”.
According to The New York Times, he escalated the campaign in July with a secret directive ordering the US military to increase its presence around the Caribbean.
Since September, US forces have carried out at least four strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats, killing at least 21 people.
The Trump administration has referred to the strikes as a “non-international armed conflict” and some of those killed as “unlawful combatants,” CBS News reported, citing confidential White House notifications to Congress.
“Unlawful combatant” is the same term once used by President George W. Bush to refer to al-Qaeda and other groups when he launched the “Global War on Terrorism” in 2001. The designation meant they did not qualify for protection under the Geneva Convention.
The Senate separately failed to reach a deal to end the US government shutdown, which will enter its ninth day on Thursday.
Neither a Republican nor a Democratic version of a government spending bill reached the 60-vote threshold needed to pass the Senate on Wednesday, as both parties remain at an impasse over healthcare subsidies.
Senate Leader John Thune told reporters that the Senate may break up the spending bill into smaller pieces to break the deadlock.
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