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

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from Maryland for his wise words. I was glad to be here for the end of his remarks because he is right about this moment that we are facing.

Donald Trump has painted himself as the peace President since 2016, promising that ``we will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about.''

In 2024, he said that ``I'm not going to start wars, I'm going to stop wars.''

One year into Donald Trump's second term, we know how false those promises were. Just in the last 12 months, President Trump has ordered military action against seven countries, blown up alleged drug boats in the Caribbean without any authorization, deployed Federal troops to at least 10 cities in the United States of America, all without congressional authorization.

Now, he has bombed and invaded Venezuela to capture its dictator, Nicolas Maduro. I have said over and over and over again, for years, how illegitimate Maduro was as President of Venezuela, and that is not up for debate.

And by the way, it is also not up for debate what an excellent job the U.S. military did in its effort to get him out of there. It was extraordinary to learn exactly what they went through to get there. They did their job. They did their job. They did it excellently.

And now Congress has the responsibility to do our job here. As we meet here today, President Trump is blockading Venezuela's ports from exporting oil while threatening to collapse their economy and also to threaten future military strikes against the country if they don't comply with his will.

Despite what the President claimed on the campaign trail, war and threats of future wars with Colombia, with Cuba, with Mexico, and even our NATO ally Denmark, when it comes to Greenland, are now animating features of his foreign policy.

The President's team claims their operation to oust Maduro was a ``law enforcement'' operation about drugs. That is the legal pretext for the action that they have led, but Maduro is now in jail in New York City and 15,000 U.S. troops and an American armada are still hovering off Venezuela's coast.

We already captured Maduro. He is in jail. So what are our troops doing down there? Clearly, this is not about law enforcement. This is not about democracy. No, as my colleague from Maryland was saying, this is about oil. The President has made that painfully clear.

President Trump mentioned oil 20 times in his January 3 press conference after Maduro was captured. He complained that Venezuela ``stole'' oil from the United States, and we must ``run'' the country to take the oil back.

But the United States doesn't need the oil. Even U.S. oil companies didn't want this invasion, nor did these U.S. companies ever own oil or own land in Venezuela. The Venezuelan Government definitely nationalized its oil industry in the seventies. That is true. From that point forward--by the way, that was when I was about 6. I am so old.

But that did happen in the seventies when I was about 6. From that point forward, Venezuela was certainly not an easy place to do business. I don't think anybody here would say that, but American companies stayed, stayed there despite the nationalization and lack of full compensation they should have had that was ordered by international courts.

In fact, American companies never pressed for higher compensation during that initial nationalization. And I would say failing to reimburse American companies is surely outrageous, but a decades-old legal dispute over a compensation is not a legitimate justification for the United States to go to war. And very few Americans--very few Americans--would support putting boots on the ground to secure Venezuela's oil.

It would be shockingly irresponsible for the President to send American troops to ``run'' Venezuela as he promised this weekend, seemingly, with the sole goal of accessing that country's oil.

Bolivia, Ecuador, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Mexico, Angola, Peru, and countless other countries have nationalized some American oil assets in the 21st and 20th centuries. All of them took advantage of American companies.

Would the Trump administration have us invade and occupy and govern all these countries to reverse that history? Would the President wield our military as tax-funded security for the expansion of American oil giants in these markets?

Remarkably, incredibly, this seems to be his plan. President Trump has floated sending American troops to secure U.S. companies to rebuild Venezuela's oil infrastructure. He has even said the U.S. Government could subsidize these oil companies. Estimates suggest it will cost a staggering $110 billion to bring Venezuela's oil and gas infrastructure back to peak production levels and take at least a decade.

I, for one, can think of a lot better uses for that money. And instead of ``no new wars,'' this President has plunged us into a quagmire--paid for by the American taxpayer--seemingly, with the primary goal of giving expensive handouts with respect to oil.

Why should the American people foot the bill for this misadventure? Why should our tax dollars fund private interests in Venezuela? Why should American troops risk their lives for any of this? Perhaps the greatest irony is that Chevron, America's only remaining major oil company in Venezuela, was not even asking for any of this to happen. Instead they simply asked the Trump administration, as they had the Biden administration, to allow their continued operation in Venezuela, which President Trump had restricted during his first term.

Other American oil firms weren't asking for this either. Few have much desire to go back into Venezuela, which helps explain why Chevron and other American companies have no plans--no plans--to spend, as the President says, ``billions and billions of dollars'' rebuilding Venezuela's oil industry as the President has declared.

Despite the President's promises to not start new wars nor pursue regime change operations abroad, today there are 15,000 brave U.S. troops and an American armada off of Venezuela's coast all without congressional authorization. And the President is threatening more attacks on more countries, including every time you turn the TV on, it is another country: Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, and Greenland, part of Denmark, a NATO ally.

Congress has not authorized any of these dangerous potential operations which risk destroying alliances and relationships that have long kept the American people safe. The Trump administration, however, continues to trample on our Constitution with unauthorized military actions while threatening others, weakening U.S. democracy, and making the world more dangerous in the process.

Congress cannot allow this to stand. I congratulate the Senator from Virginia for his leadership to make sure the American people's voices are heard in this moment, on this floor, in this Chamber. We must reassert our role to prevent the President from his continued irresponsible conduct.

And I think it is really important for us, as I have heard the Senator from Virginia say--it is critically important for us to hold public oversight hearings in which the administration explains to the American people what they plan to do with the thousands of U.S. troops off Venezuela's coast, with their plan to ``run'' Venezuela, and with the regime in Caracas over which they now claim to have control.

The unusual thing about where we are right now is this is not some after-action report where kinetic activities is already done and now Congress is complaining that it hasn't been brought into the loop. Fifteen thousand troops are off the coast of Venezuela today. The administration should be here today explaining to the American people what the plan is for those troops.

And if it is, in fact, to secure oil assets for the United States of America in Venezuela, which I don't believe the American people will support, I know the American people will never support putting boots on the ground. The President said I don't mind using the words ``boots on the ground.'' I think the American people will mind it.

With so many troops and assets still in the region, this is the opportunity for Congress to help determine what our path forward is going to be in our backyard, right here in this hemisphere.

The American people did not vote to send U.S. troops on President Trump's project to Venezuela, but I don't think they voted to dominate the Western Hemisphere either, which is what President Trump says his overall mission is.

And as my colleague from Maryland said, he is willing to twist the Monroe Doctrine. He is not even following it. He is twisting the Monroe Doctrine, which the United States actually used to keep colonial powers out of our hemisphere, to justify his own colonial intentions to exploit Venezuelan oil.

That is a complete inversion of what the Monroe Doctrine is. So I guess the President has rightly amended it to call it the ``Donroe'' version of the Monroe Doctrine. But in any case, it is gunboat diplomacy, a 19th century foreign policy we have not seen on this scale since President McKinley was the President of the United States. And it will normalize a world in which ``might means right,'' as the White House is saying today, doing away with the rules-based international order that we helped build, that has served the United States so well since World War II.

All of this would seem to be part of the President's embrace of a ``spheres of influence'' arrangement with China and with Russia. The President seemed totally fine with allowing China to dominate Asia and Russia to dominate Europe, as long as they let us dominate the Western Hemisphere. That is a 19th century idea if there ever was a 19th century idea.

He clearly sees little reason to compete or constrain them as demonstrated by his willingness to accept the trade deal with China's Xi Jinping that overwhelmingly--overwhelmingly--favored Beijing. He was giving Xi Jinping stuff that he didn't even ask for the minute he was worried that somehow we were going to get cut off from his critical minerals.

But as an unrestrained Chinese Middle Kingdom will inevitably expand outward, as will Russia with its imperial design, history shows us the result will be a global conflict when these ambitions collide, as they inevitably will, a global conflict that ultimately will implicate the United States and put America in danger.

This begins to show you how out of the mainstream this President's view of the world is. His constant abandonment of basic principles of international law and order are, again, going to eventually reverberate against America's national interests. The only question is when.

Indeed, the kind of ``spheres of influence'' arrangement on which the President seems to be so obsessed or focused is exactly the arrangement that produced two world wars. It is exactly why, after World War II, the United States and our allies established the rules-based order to peacefully resolve conflicts, regulate global trade, and ultimately ensure rules-based international exchange. That order was never perfect.

And the United States often undermined it with our own hubris, particularly the invasion of Iraq--which I opposed. And we need to learn from our own mistakes, including by avoiding reckless new wars like the one President Trump has launched.

Nevertheless, the postwar order that prevented war between the great powers, among the great powers, and for all its flaws, it largely kept the American people safe. And criticizing that order seems pretty easy, given its imperfections. But the critic's task becomes harder once they are forced to compare it with what came before, the anarchy that preceded the Second World War and what China and Russia offer for the future of this world.

This is what President Trump risks with his 19th century foreign policy, with his actions in Venezuela, his lawless strikes across the Caribbean and Pacific, his threats to invade Colombia, Cuba, Greenland, and Mexico. These actions and threats will have serious implications for U.S. national security today and tomorrow.

In the case of Greenland, the President's threats risk the unity of NATO, our most vital alliance, the most successful alliance in world history. They risk setting precedent for authoritarian regimes all over this world to intervene militarily under the guise of going after leaders accused of criminal conduct or simply to access valuable natural resources or critical technologies under their control.

Donald Trump, President Trump, says he wants to dominate ``our hemisphere,'' he calls it. Surely, China's Xi Jinping wants to dominate what he would describe as his region in Asia, and Vladimir Putin would like to dominate what he sees as his region in Eurasia. President Trump's recklessness risks normalizing such imperial aggression, putting us on a pathway toward a more dangerous world in which ``might means right'' and the rule of law is abandoned.

Colorado cannot allow this President to create such a world for our children, which is why we need to continue to fight on a bipartisan basis when possible to prevent another forever war in Venezuela or beyond and to constrain the President's dangerous, dangerous ambition because our country deserves better than this administration's recklessness and our children surely do as well.

Thank you for allowing me to speak here today, and I hope this will be a moment when we come together and fulfill the demands that our Constitution requires of the people fortunate enough to serve in this body.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source