Providing for Congressional Disapproval Under Chapter 8 of Title United States Code, of the Rule Submitted By the Environmental Protection Agency Relating to ``Air Plan Approval; South Dakota;
Floor Speech
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Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from Colorado, and I want to thank my colleague from Virginia for their leadership on what is the very important question before the U.S. Senate.
In the weeks and months leading up to the capture of Nicolas Maduro, President Trump sent 15,000 U.S. military personnel to the Caribbean and Venezuela, that included Special Forces, Marines, and specialized units from all of our branches of government. He sent 13 warships to the Caribbean, including the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, and several amphibious assault ships. More than 100 advanced combat aircraft were deployed, including F-35s from the Vermont National Guard. And we can estimate that thousands of military and intelligence personnel were involved in planning and executing the raid that seized Maduro.
A mobilization of this size costs hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions. This operation is, and apparently always has been, about one thing: seizing control of Venezuela's oil. President Trump and his closest advisers have made that clear. It is about President Trump using the power that he has as President, without restraint, to get the oil that he wants.
This is not my assertion. These are President Trump's words:
We built Venezuela's oil industry with American talent, drive and skill, and the socialist regime stole it from us . . .
It was the greatest theft in the history of America. They took . . . away from us.
We're going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure and start making money for the country. We will be selling large amounts of oil to other countries.
I think it is a fair question. If that is the President's goal, what is in it for farmers in Vermont? Small business owners in Ohio? For the elementary school teacher in Texas? For a truck mechanic in South Dakota? There is absolutely nothing in it for everyday Americans. And we spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a mission that can only benefit the oil industry who didn't even ask that this be done in the first place.
So what about this operation is ``America First''? It might be ``Trump First'' or it might be ``Chevron First,'' but it is not ``America First.'' And we just saw the revelation that a major donor to President Trump bought at bargain basement prices a Chevron subsidiary and can stand to make literally billions of dollars. Should our foreign policy be about pure profits, as opposed to pure benefit for the American people? About profits that go to big corporations and to the President's friends? That is what is going on here.
There is no limit. Within hours of Maduro's capture, President Trump was threatening Greenland; they have minerals. Colombia, they have resources as well. Cuba and Mexico. Is this the world that will work for us or the world that we want where rather than acting as a defender--actually the leader--in maintaining long-established principles of national sovereignty, we threaten and invade countries to seize their natural resources? That is the way it was before 1945: ``Might makes right.'' That is a dangerous world. And is that the world that the United States wants to leave to future generations?
There are two questions before the Senate. One is a policy debate, the wisdom of this attack on Venezuela. There is no dispute about the evil of Maduro. None. There is enormous respect and appreciation for the professionalism, the bravery of our military that did something that, frankly, seems impossible. But in service of what? This is an extraordinary military victory, but it is in service of a neocon dream. We saw this in Libya. We saw this in Iraq. We saw this in Afghanistan.
President Trump is now saying we are going to ``run the country.'' And President Trump is heralding that Maduro is in jail in Manhattan. We all are. But left behind in Venezuela is every structure that Maduro put in place. His hand-picked Vice President is now the leader. His repressive, brutal, murderous Interior Minister is still in charge. So, yes, Maduro is gone, but everything he built remains behind. What kind of victory is that?
The second question--and I thank Senator Kaine for being the leader on this--is one that every person who serves in the U.S. Senate has to answer: Will we do our job? This is not optional. Article I of the U.S. Constitution says it is up to Congress to authorize the use of military force in going to war. It is our job, and it is our responsibility. And one of the enormous threats to our democracy right now is the capitulation of too many Members of the House and too many Members of the Senate of powers that are vested in this body, under the Constitution, in ceding those authorities to the Chief Executive.
Why is that wrong? It is wrong because there is wisdom in the Constitution's separation of powers that power cannot be concentrated in one branch of government. And it is as a result of one branch of government ceding its authority and its responsibility to the Executive. We have an obligation to protect our constitutional role, and it is not about us. It is about our country. And what is a greater responsibility than the decision to send men and women into combat? That is our job.
And, Senator Kaine, thank you so much for all of your efforts to remind us of our responsibility and to tell us to do our job.
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