Senior Democratic lawmakers — and at least one Republican — criticized President Donald Trump on after U.S. forces seized a Venezuelan oil tanker off the country’s coast, the latest escalation in the administration’s expanding military campaign in the Caribbean.
Trump confirmed the seizure shortly after it occurred. “We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela — large tanker, very large, largest one ever seized, actually,” he told reporters. Asked what would happen to the oil on board, he said, “We keep the oil, I guess!”
Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on Thursday that the seizure undercut the administration’s justification for its operations, as The Guardian reports:
“This shows that their whole cover story — that this is about interdicting drugs — is a big lie. This is just one more piece of evidence that this is really about regime change — by force.”
Senator Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, echoe Van Hollen’s assessment, expressing concern about the trajectory of U.S. actions in the region. “I have no idea why the president is seizing an oil tanker and I’m fairly gravely concerned that he’s sleepwalking us into a war with Venezuela,” he said. Senator Mark Warner raised similar concerns, writing on social media: “So they can seize an oil tanker, but not a drug boat?”
Republican Senator Rand Paul told NewsNation that “seizing someone’s oil tanker is an initiation of war,” adding, “Is it the job of the American government to go looking for monsters around the world, looking for adversaries and beginning wars?” Paul had said last month that the administration was “pretending we are ‘at war'” to “justify blowing up boats all without a vote.”
Lawmakers respond to the U.S. seizure of an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela on Wednesday. Senator Chris Coons warns he’s “gravely concerned that the president is sleepwalking us into war.”…
The criticism follows weeks of heightened scrutiny over the administration’s operations. The U.S. has deployed what it calls its largest naval presence in the Caribbean since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and has conducted more than 20 strikes on alleged drug-smuggling vessels, killing over 80 people.
Attorney General Pam Bondi defended the tanker seizure, saying the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Coast Guard executed a lawful warrant against a vessel transporting sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran. Venezuela’s government denounced the action as “a blatant theft and an act of international piracy,” arguing it confirmed that U.S. pressure “has always been about our natural resources.”
Senators Tim Kaine, Schumer, Paul, and others have introduced a war powers resolution to prevent further military engagement in Venezuela without authorization from Congress, citing the administration’s expanding operations and the president’s shifting public statements.
Originally published on Latin Times
