The US Senate fails to curb Trump’s power to strike drug cartels Donald Trump news

Democrats say President Donald Trump does not have the authority to use force without the approval of Congress.

Senate Republicans voted against a bill that would limit President Donald Trump’s use of force against drug cartels after he authorized the strikes of boats suspected of drug trafficking off the coast of Venezuela.

The bill, introduced by Democratic Senators Adam Schiff of California and Tim Kaine of Virginia, called on the US military to withdraw from “hostile actions not authorized by Congress,” including those against “any nongovernmental organization engaged in the promotion, trafficking, distribution, and other related activities of illicit drugs.”

The bill also noted that “designating an entity as a foreign terrorist organization or a Specially Designated Global Terrorist does not give the President legal authority to use force” against them.

While Democrats invoked the 1973 War Powers Resolution to force the vote in the Senate, the bill was rejected by a vote of 48-51 on Wednesday.

Under the US Constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war, but Trump has used his power as president to wage an unofficial war on drug cartels.

“Unrestricted strikes in the Caribbean risk destabilizing the region, provoking confrontation with neighboring governments and dragging our forces into another open conflict… because of one man’s reckless decision-making,” said Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Earlier this year, Trump designated Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, El Salvador’s MS-13, and Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel as “foreign terrorist organizations.”

According to the New York Times, he escalated the campaign in July by issuing a secret directive ordering the US military to increase its presence around the Caribbean.

Since September, US forces have carried out at least four strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats, killing at least 21 people.

The Trump administration referred to the strikes as a “non-international armed conflict” and some of the dead as “unlawful combatants,” CBS News reported, citing classified notifications from the White House to Congress.

“Unlawful combatant” is the same term that President George W. Bush once used to refer to Al Qaeda and other groups when he launched the “Global War on Terror” in 2001. That designation meant they were ineligible for protection under the Geneva Convention.

The Senate separately failed to reach an agreement to end the US government shutdown, which enters its ninth day on Thursday.

Neither the Republican nor Democratic versions of the government spending bill reached the 60-vote threshold needed to pass the Senate on Wednesday, as the two parties remain in an impasse over health care support.

Senate Leader John Thune told reporters that the Senate may break the spending bill into smaller parts to break the stalemate.