.png)
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was first published in The Spokesman Review Oct. 8.
WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked an effort by Democrats, joined by two GOP senators, to stop President Donald Trump from launching additional military strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea suspected of carrying drugs.
The U.S. military has attacked at least four vessels coming from Venezuela since early September, killing more than 20 people in what the Trump administration describes as a “non-international armed conflict” against “narco-terrorists.” Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joined all but one Democrat in voting to invoke the War Powers Resolution of 1973, a Vietnam War-era law meant to rein in a president’s ability to launch attacks.
Rep. Michael Baumgartner, R-Spokane, said in an interview that although he shares Trump’s concern about drug trafficking, the actions of Venezuelan gangs and the government of President Nicolas Maduro, he believes Congress should assert its role in authorizing military action. He noted that most of the fentanyl and other illicit opioids that kill thousands of Americans each month come from Mexico, not Venezuela.
“I am no fan of the Maduro regime, and I think there’s strong evidence they’re involved with drug trafficking and a number of nefarious activities,” he said. “But still, there has to be congressional oversight and authorization in these major foreign policy actions, and so I am looking forward to seeing that process take place.”
Only Congress has the power to declare war, under the Constitution and the 1973 law that reinforces that authority, allowing a president to use military force only when authorized by lawmakers or in response to a direct attack on the United States or its armed forces. But in a notice sent to Congress on Oct. 2 and obtained by The Spokesman-Review, the administration said it had designated Venezuelan drug cartels as terrorist organizations “and determined that their actions constitute an armed attack against the United States.”
Baumgartner is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which is responsible for legislation to authorize military force under the War Powers Resolution.
“I would certainly welcome the administration coming before the committee to appropriately give us more detail and answer some congressional questions about it,” he said. “I feel confident that the administration is putting together the right intelligence and that they’re taking action against some bad actors that we need to deal with. Where I would like to be reassured is on the process.”
Democrats have argued that international drug trafficking should be treated as a law enforcement issue, not an attack on the United States akin to a bombing. Rep. Adam Smith of Bellevue, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, issued a joint statement with other Democratic committee leaders after the second U.S. strike in the Caribbean on Sept. 15, calling the attacks an “abuse of presidential authority” that “risks dragging us into another endless war.”
“While we agree that the flow of drugs into the United States is a horrific public health crisis that must be addressed, we believe that essential mission should be led by law enforcement,” the Democrats said. “A war with cartels places our troops and other U.S. personnel in the region at risk with no clear explanation or plan.”
In a separate letter to Trump on Tuesday, Smith and the other Democratic leaders of five national security-related panels said his administration had not provided Congress with details about the intelligence behind the strikes, and had not even identified which groups it considers terrorist organizations. They noted that the administration had not justified the use of force, beyond the president’s broad assertion of his powers under Article II of the Constitution.
Baumgartner said he made multiple trips to Venezuela while working as an advisor for Coeur d’Alene-based Hecla Mining, most recently in 2007, which operated that country’s largest gold mine at the time. He added that he has followed events in the country since he was in graduate school at Harvard University, when he had Venezuelan roommates, and visited neighboring Colombia in 2021.
The U.S. strikes have raised concerns that they could spark a regional war. Late Wednesday, President Gustavo Petro of Colombia wrote in a post on X that the latest strike destroyed a boat carrying Colombian citizens, and he implied that the United States is starting a war to overthrow the government in Venezuela, one of the world’s biggest oil producers.
“A new theater of war has opened: the Caribbean,” Petro wrote in Spanish. “This isn’t a war against smuggling; it’s a war for oil, and the world must stop it. The aggression is against all of Latin America and the Caribbean.”
Before entering politics, Baumgartner worked as a State Department official in Iraq and a government contractor in Afghanistan, when the U.S. military was operating under a broad war authorization that remains in effect nearly a quarter-century after Congress enacted it following the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Republicans in Congress have largely deferred to the Trump administration on the strikes in the Caribbean. Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a brief interview Tuesday that he has seen evidence of substantial amounts of opioids coming to the United States from Venezuela, which primarily exports cocaine, according to the Trump administration itself.
“These guys know exactly what they’re doing, and they’re being very surgical about it and they’re being incredibly successful about it,” Risch told The Spokesman- Review. “And there will be people whose lives are saved as a result.”
Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, refused to answer questions from The Spokesman-Review about the strikes at the Capitol on Tuesday.
In a speech to sailors aboard the U.S.S. Harry Truman to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Navy on Sunday, Trump called the strikes in the Caribbean “an act of kindness.”
“In recent weeks, the Navy has supported our mission to blow the cartel terrorists the hell out of the water,” he said. “And you know, there are no boats in the water anymore. You can’t find any. We’re having a hard time finding them. But you know, it’s a pretty tough thing we’ve been doing.”
Orion Donovan Smith’s work is funded in part by members of the Spokane community via the Community Journalism and Civic Engagement Fund. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license.
