WASHINGTON, Jan 8 (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate voted on Thursday to advance a resolution that would bar President Donald Trump from taking further military action against Venezuela without congressional authorization, even as Trump said U.S. oversight of the troubled nation could last years.
The Senate voted 52 to 47 on a procedural measure to advance the war powers resolution, as a handful of Trump’s fellow Republicans voted with every Democrat in favor of moving ahead toward a final vote on the matter.
Earlier, Trump told the New York Times in an interview published on Thursday that the U.S. could oversee Venezuela and control its oil revenue for years.
Trump also appeared to lift a threat of military action against Venezuela’s neighbor, Colombia. Trump invited Colombia’s leftist leader, whom he had previously called a “sick man,” to visit Washington.
“Only time will tell” how long the United States will oversee Venezuela, Trump said. When asked by the newspaper if it would be three months, six months, a year or longer, Trump said: “I would say much longer.”
“We will rebuild it in a very profitable way,” Trump said of Venezuela, where he sent troops to seize President Nicolas Maduro in a night raid on Saturday.
Trump added that the U.S. was “getting along very well” with the government of interim President Delcy Rodriguez, a longstanding Maduro loyalist who had served as the ousted leader’s vice president.
POLITICAL PRISONERS FREED
Meanwhile, Venezuela’s top lawmaker, Jorge Rodriguez, said on Thursday that a significant number of both foreign and Venezuelan prisoners would be freed during the day.
The liberations, a repeated demand of the country’s political opposition, are a gesture of peace, Rodriguez said, adding the action was unilateral and not agreed upon with any other party.
Top opposition leader Maria Corina Machado’s movement, as well as other opposition figures and human rights groups, have demanded the release of political prisoners since the U.S. capture of Maduro.
Local rights group Foro Penal estimates there are 863 political prisoners in the country, including political figures, human rights activists, protesters arrested after the disputed 2024 election, and journalists.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the planned prisoner release.
The Times reported Trump declined to answer questions about why he had decided not to give power in Venezuela to the opposition, which Washington had previously considered the legitimate winner of the 2024 election.
The Senate measure faces a steep climb to become law. It would need to be passed by the House of Representatives – which is also controlled by Trump’s Republicans. If both chambers pass the resolution, each would need to secure a two-thirds majority to override a likely Trump veto. But it marked a rare sign of congressional Republican pushback against the Trump White House.
“Republicans should be ashamed of the Senators that just voted with Democrats in attempting to take away our Powers to fight and defend the United States of America,” Trump said in a social media post.
COLOMBIA THREAT APPEARS TO DISSIPATE
The New York Times said its reporters were permitted to sit in during a phone call between Trump and Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro, provided the contents of the call were off the record.
In a post on social media, Trump said: “It was a great honor to speak with the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, who called to explain the situation of drugs and other disagreements that we have had. I appreciated his call and tone, and look forward to meeting him in the near future.”
Petro described the call, his first with Trump, as cordial.
Trump on Tuesday unveiled a plan to refine and sell up to 50 million barrels of Venezuelan oil that had been stuck in Venezuela under U.S. blockade.
Venezuela, with the world’s biggest proven oil reserves, has become impoverished in recent decades, with 8 million people fleeing abroad in one of the world’s biggest migration crises.
Washington and the Venezuelan opposition have long blamed corruption, mismanagement and brutality by the ruling Socialist Party. Maduro blamed the economic damage on U.S. sanctions.
Trump is scheduled to meet with the heads of major oil companies at the White House on Friday to discuss ways of raising Venezuela’s oil production. Representatives from the top three U.S. oil companies, Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips and Chevron, would be present, according to a source familiar with the planning.
The companies, all of which have experience in Venezuela, have declined to comment.
(Reporting by Reuters bureauxWriting by Peter Graff and James OliphantEditing by Scott Malone, Ros Russell, Rod Nickel)
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