The U.S. Senate blocked on Wednesday a bill that sought to limit President Donald Trump's military powers to prevent future military actions in Venezuela. Republicans halted the bill under the argument that it was an "irrelevant" motion because the Trump administration's military actions in Venezuela "have ended," according to party leaders during the session. With 51 votes in favor and 50 against, the measure was frozen after it had advanced symbolically last week. Republican Senators Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), and Rand Paul (Kentucky) had joined all Democrats to vote to continue considering the resolution. According to senators like Republican Josh Hawley, the decision not to limit U.S. military powers over Venezuela also came down to statements shared by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who would have assured lawmakers that the possibility of deploying troops to Venezuelan territory was null. Republicans reinforced the idea by saying that with the January 3 operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, its actions in the South American nation had concluded. According to ruling-party lawmakers, Rubio committed to appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the coming weeks to discuss actions in Venezuela over the past months. The capture of Maduro, who is being held in a federal prison in New York on charges of narco-terrorism and other offenses, was justified by the Trump administration as a police mission to enforce a judicial order against the deposed Venezuelan leader. On Wednesday, Trump assured he had a telephone call with Venezuela's acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, whom he described as an "excellent" person, and they subsequently discussed oil and other bilateral cooperation topics. On Thursday, the Republican will receive at the White House Venezuela's main opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, whose role in Venezuela has been diluted after Trump's complacency with who was Maduro's vice president until the day of his capture.
