Republican Sen. Rand Paul again slammed the Trump administration over its military campaign against the Venezuelan regime, now rejecting the blockade of sanctioned oil tankers off the South American country’s waters.
Speaking on Fox News, Paul reiterated his stance that any declaration of war should be done by Congress and President Donald Trump should be prevented from taking unilateral action that could result in an armed conflict.
🚨 Rand Paul breaks ranks:
“We have never decided to just shoot unarmed smugglers without proof. It’s horrendous. It’s illegal. It’s immoral… I’m not sending American kids to die for oil.”
That’s not the left talking. That’s a Republican senator calling it what it is. pic.twitter.com/1pBDGgltae
— Brian Allen (@allenanalysis) December 18, 2025
Asked if he supported the blockade, he said he didn’t and called it a “provocation and a prelude to war.”
“Wars of offense, I don’t think it’s a good idea. I’m not down for sending kinds I know in the military to die for oil. The president announced the other day he’s going back to seize our land, our oil. That made no sense at all,” Paul added.
He was making reference to a remark made by Trump on Wednesday demanding Venezuela return assets it seized from U.S. oil companies years ago. “You remember they took all of our energy rights. They took all of our oil not that long ago. And we want it back. They took it — they illegally took it,” Trump said.
Fortune noted that U.S. oil companies played a leading role in Venezuela’s oil industry for decades until different governments nationalized the sector, first in the 1970s and in recent years by Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro. Compensation offered by Venezuela was deemed insufficient, the outlet added, recalling that in 2014 an international arbitration panel ordered the country to pay $1.6 billion to ExxonMobil.
Maduro, on his end, has rejected Trump’s claims and the blockade, saying the country will continue trading and he won’t be toppled.
“Trade in and out will continue. Our oil and all our natural wealth that by the constitution and Bolivar’s legacy belongs to its only legitimate owner, which for centuries and centuries has been our sovereign people of Venezuela,” Maduro said on Wednesday.
He went on to defy Trump’s “intention” of toppling him, saying: “This will just not happen, never, never, never, Venezuela will never be a colony of anything or anyone, never.”
Originally published on Latin Times
