So, like he said, no units of US Regulars doing the fighting/occupying, which is the common usage of the phrase “boots on the ground” these days. Just have local strongmen and their lieutenants do the dirty work, with a few American Intelligence handlers and “advisors” keeping an eye on them. Which was the style through the Cold War save exceptions like Dominican Republic in the 60s and Panama in ‘89.
Which takes time to set up, and still isn’t Trump’s “I am God-King and I command you” tactic.
Politico: Senate votes to limit Trump on Venezuela
Trump may have no interest in further bombing of Venezuela since it mostly has his kind of government.
And getting this resolution past the House will be hard.
And Trump may veto.
But this vote is still an excellent precedent.
Don’t think we are there yet.
The oil belongs to the current government of Venezuela. Trump is negotiating how title can be transferred during sale of the oil (who do we make out the checks out to?). That involves skilled legal teams on both sides. Trump gets something and Venezuela gets something. It may be an example of corruption but not governance.
Controlling the governance of Venezuela would require intercourse between numerous ambassadorial teams. At present the Maduro organization is in charge.
Not the common definition for “boots in the ground”.
Not too much time, they already more or less did it in Venezuela.
May?!
This has zero chance of passing into law.
I agree that Trump would veto the Venezuela resolution.
The difference with the Greenland resolution is that Senator Gallego introduced it as an amendment to the FY2026 Defense appropriation. So if Trump vetoed it, he would theoretically lose provisions he likes, such as paying soldiers.
Maybe it will be part of a shutdown impasse.
They grabbed one guy. That doesn’t change much on the ground.
It seems to have changed a lot, for example the destination of Venezuela’s oil exports.
I’ll believe it when it actually happens.
Yeah, I’ve seen people making jokes elsewhere about how Trump must think tankers are socialist or something.
All that oil in a big communal tank instead of nice individual barrels; obvious socialism.
Something that’s never made sense to me:
The Constitution says Congress has the power to declare war. So how do we get to a point where Congress has to vote to tell a president he cannot go to war, but that vote is subject to presidential veto? Isn’t that backwards?
Congress has the power to declare war, yes. But they wield that power like anything else, vote in both chambers and present it to the President. The fact a declaration of war has never been vetoed is political, not legal.
However, to your bigger point, basically, Congress has allowed the President to start wars without a declaration. What Congress tried to do in 1973 with the War Powers Resolution is to assert their power to shape/limit the war. In that way, it has been somewhat successful.
Once “hostilities” are introduced, per the WPR, this is how it ends:
(1) Congress Authorizes it (they pass a AUMF/declare war);
(2) Congress votes hostilities are occurring and they order withdrawal (what they are trying to do now);
(3) President reports hostilities, and Congress does nothing and 60 days elapses = not authorized;
(4) The President winds down the action on his own (lots of actions are now designed to be very short and/or not full blow war - skirting what is hostilities or not).
The resolution linked above is a mechanism in an attempt to trigger the WPR - the article does not make that very clear - here is the actual joint resolution from December 2025 (pre-invasion/capture): To direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Venezuela that have not been authorized by Congress.
Per the WPR, “Hostilities” finding is purely formal, not factual - this is the key. In this case, the President never reported hostilities** so the 60 day clock is not running. Congress is trying to vote that these are hostilities and the action should end since they did not authorize it. This resolution that was introduced is basically saying there are hostilities in Venezuela which should trigger the WPR. It will be vetoed because Presidents never consider anything to be hostilities so the WPR is never formally triggered.
*The President did report an introduction of hostilities within 48 hours pursuant to WPR in Sep 2025 for his bigger war on cocaine. In theory, since Congress did nothing, those “boat strike” hostilities should end within 60 days. Whether that includes actions inside Venezuela or not is not clear to me but it was obviously foreseeable.
I assume this clears up nothing.
We’ll have to wait and see.
We’re gonna’ need a bigger boat. I guess we’ll just take it.