US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine listen as President Donald Trump addresses the media on January 3, 2026.

(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

“Trump has no right to take us to war with Venezuela. This is reckless and illegal,” said Rep. Greg Casar. “Congress should vote immediately on a War Powers Resolution to stop him.”

Jake Johnson

Jan 03, 2026

Members of the US Congress on Saturday demanded emergency legislative action to prevent the Trump administration from taking further military action in Venezuela after the president threatened a “second wave” of attacks and said the US will control the South American country’s government indefinitely.

Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), said that “Congress should vote immediately on a War Powers Resolution to stop” President Donald Trump, whose administration has for months unlawfully bombed boats in international waters and threatened a direct military assault on Venezuela without lawmakers’ approval.

RECOMMENDED…

‘This is About Oil and Regime Change’: GOP Lawmaker Speaks Out Against Push for War in Venezuela

Progressives Urge Passage of Bills to Stop Trump From Launching ‘Forever War’ in Venezuela

“Trump has no right to take us to war with Venezuela. This is reckless and illegal,” said Casar. “My entire life, politicians have been sending other people’s kids to die in reckless regime change wars. Enough. No new wars.”

Another prominent CPC member, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), said in response to the bombing of Venezuela and capture of its president that “these are the actions of a rogue state.”

“Trump’s illegal and unprovoked bombing of Venezuela and kidnapping of its president are grave violations of international law and the US Constitution,” Tlaib wrote on social media. “The American people do not want another regime change war abroad.”

Progressives weren’t alone in criticizing the administration’s unauthorized military action in Venezuela. Establishment Democrats, including Sen. Adam Schiff of California and others, also called for urgent congressional action in the face of Trump’s latest unlawful bombing campaign.

“Without congressional approval or the buy-in of the public, Trump risks plunging a hemisphere into chaos and has broken his promise to end wars instead of starting them,” Schiff said in a statement. “Congress must bring up a new War Powers Resolution and reassert its power to authorize force or to refuse to do so. We must speak for the American people who profoundly reject being dragged into new wars.”

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said he will force a Senate vote next week on a bipartisan War Powers Resolution to block additional US military action in Venezuela.

“Where will this go next?” Kaine asked in a statement. “Will the president deploy our troops to protect Iranian protesters? To enforce the fragile ceasefire in Gaza? To battle terrorists in Nigeria? To seize Greenland or the Panama Canal? To suppress Americans peacefully assembling to protest his policies? Trump has threatened to do all this and more and sees no need to seek legal authorization from people’s elected legislature before putting servicemembers at risk.”

“It is long past time for Congress to reassert its critical constitutional role in matters of war, peace, diplomacy, and trade,” Kaine added. “My bipartisan resolution stipulating that we should not be at war with Venezuela absent a clear congressional authorization will come up for a vote next week.”

The lawmakers’ push for legislative action came as Trump clearly indicated that his administration isn’t done intervening in Venezuela’s internal politics—and plans to exploit the country’s vast oil reserves.

During a press conference on Saturday, Trump said that the US “is going to run” Venezuela, signaling the possibility of a troop deployment.

“We’re not afraid of boots on the ground,” the president said in response to a reporter’s question, adding vaguely that his administration is “designating various people” to run the government.

Whether the GOP-controlled Congress acts to constrain the Trump administration will depend on support from Republicans, who have largely applauded the US attack on Venezuela and capture of Maduro. In separate statements, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) described the operation as “decisive” and justified.

Ahead of Saturday’s assault, the Republican-controlled Congress rejected War Powers Resolutions aimed at preventing Trump from launching a war on Venezuela without lawmakers’ approval.

One Republican lawmaker who had raised constitutional concerns about Saturday’s actions, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, appeared to drop them after a phone call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

But Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) noted in a statement that both Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “looked every senator in the eye a few weeks ago and said this wasn’t about regime change.”

“I didn’t trust them then, and we see now that they blatantly lied to Congress,” said Kim. “Trump rejected our constitutionally required approval process for armed conflict because the administration knows the American people overwhelmingly reject risks pulling our nation into another war.”

Below is a statement by the International Socialist Tendency, which the Socialist Workers Party is part of, in response to Trump’s attacks on Venezuela

1. The US raids on Venezuela on the night of 2-3 January and the kidnapping and imprisonment of President Nicolás Maduro are naked acts of imperialist aggression. Donald Trump’s declaration that ‘we are going to run Venezuela’ sums up the arrogance of US power. His justifications – that Maduro is the boss of a drug cartel, that his regime is undemocratic, etc – are, to use one of his favourite words, fake. This is about removing a regime that, especially under Hugo Chávez, has long been a thorn in Washington’s side and seizing the largest oil reserves in the world. Trump gloats: ‘We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in.’ He has exposed the hollowness of his denunciations of previous US administrations’ ‘forever wars’ and attempts at regime change.

2. The assault on Venezuela must be seen against the background of Trump’s reaffirmation of the Monroe doctrine in his new National Security Strategy. This policy warning European powers to stay away from the Americas expressed the early United States’ aim to dominate the Western Hemisphere. Only in the late 19th century did Washington become strong enough to start displacing Britain, hitherto the dominant imperialist power in Latin America. This process was accompanied by war with Spain and numerous military interventions in Central America.

3. After the Second World War, the US responded to the advance of the left in Latin America by helping to engineer numerous military coups (Guatemala, Brazil, Chile, Argentina), invading the Dominican Republic and Grenada, and underwriting bloody counter-revolutionary wars (Bolivia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua). In 1989 a US invasion removed and imprisoned the former CIA asset Manuel Noriega, President of Panama.

4. Now, however, the global dominance of US imperialism is under growing pressure. China has emerged as its greatest military and technological rival and the biggest market for Latin America’s raw materials and agricultural exports. The Trump administration has made reinforcing US domination of the Western Hemisphere and its resources its most important strategic priority. Hence the threats to Panama, Greenland, and Canada. Hence also the financial support for Javier Milei’s ultra-neoliberal government in Argentina. And hence now the attack on Venezuela.

5. By overthrowing Maduro Trump is pointing a gun at the head of every other Latin American president. If the US succeeds in imposing regime change on Venezuela, Cuba may be the next target. Trump and his Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban exiles, want to eradicate all remnants of revolutionary challenges to US imperialism in the Americas. Most governments will probably confine themselves to verbal protests and seek to ingratiate themselves with Trump. We demand that every state that claims to support democracy should unequivocally condemn the US intervention and take steps to isolate the aggressor.

A woman watches a public television broadcast by Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino in Caracas, Venezuela on January 03, 2026.

(Photo by Boris Vergara/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“It is brutal imperialist aggression,” said former Bolivian President Evo Morales.

Jake Johnson, Common Dreams, Jan 03, 2026

The Trump administration’s military assault on Venezuela and apparent capture of the country’s president in the early hours of Saturday morning sparked immediate backlash from leaders in Latin America and across the globe, with lawmakers, activists, and experts accusing the US of launching yet another illegal war of aggression.

Latin American leaders portrayed the assault as a continuation of the long, bloody history of US intervention in the region, which has included vicious military coups and material support for genocidal right-wing forces.

RECOMMENDED…

Trump ‘Choosing From the War Crimes Menu’ With ‘Quarantine’ on Venezuela Oil Exports

Trump Escalates in Venezuela With ‘Illegal’ US Seizure of Oil Tanker

“This is state terrorism against the brave Venezuelan people and against Our America,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel wrote in a social media post, demanding urgent action from the international community in response to the “criminal attack.”

Evo Morales, the leftist former president of Bolivia, said that “we strongly and unequivocally repudiate” the US attack on Venezuela.

“It is brutal imperialist aggression that violates its sovereignty,” Morales added. “All our solidarity with the Venezuelan people in resistance.”

Colombian President Gustavo Petro, one of the first world leaders to respond to Saturday’s developments, decried US “aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and of Latin America.” Petro said Colombian forces “are being deployed” to the nation’s border with Venezuela and that “all available support forces will be deployed in the event of a massive influx of refugees.”

“Without sovereignty, there is no nation,” said Petro. “Peace is the way, and dialogue between peoples is fundamental for national unity. Dialogue and more dialogue is our proposal.”

One Latin American leader, far-right Argentine president and Trump ally Javier Milei, openly celebrated the alleged US capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, declaring on social media, “FREEDOM ADVANCES.”

Leaders and lawmakers in Europe also reacted to the US bombings. Pedro Sánchez, the prime minister of Spain, issued a cautious statement calling for “deescalation and responsibility.”

British MP Zarah Sultana was far more forceful, writing on social media that “Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves—and that’s no coincidence.”

“This is naked US imperialism: an illegal assault on Caracas aimed at overthrowing a sovereign government and plundering its resources,” Sultana added.