Cuba

Senate rejects bid to check Trump on Cuba

Dems picked up one GOP vote — but remain short of a winning majority.

Connor O'Brien

Senate Democrats again lost a bid to curb President Donald Trump’s authority to wield military force — despite making their first inroads with the GOP in weeks of efforts to temper the administration’s foreign policy.

This time, Democrats proposed checking Trump on Cuba, as the president has upped economic pressure on Havana and threatened military action against the nearby adversary.

Republicans succeeded in sidelining the resolution in a 51-47 procedural vote, signaling Trump’s continued sway over the GOP. But Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) — who has most recently opposed attempts to hem in Trump on Iran — sided with Democrats, as did Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, as with previous votes on Iran, sided with Republicans to kill the resolution.

The move by Collins — the chair of the Appropriations Committee who faces perhaps the toughest reelection bid of any GOP incumbent — is a notable shift. The Maine Republican has separately signaled that she won’t support further military action against Iran when the conflict reaches a key 60-day legal mark for Congress to authorize continued operations.

In forcing the debate, Democrats — led by Sens. Tim Kaine of Virginia, Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Adam Schiff of California — argued that Congress should head off another potential conflict, citing Trump’s threats toward Cuba, as the nearly two-month-old war with Iran grinds on with no clear end.

The Cuba vote was the latest in a series of war powers measures to face defeat in the Senate in recent months — including five failed votes on Iran and multiple unsuccessful attempts to check Trump on Venezuela.

Lawmakers, are set to pivot to again debating Iran. Both the House and Senate are expected to vote again to curb the Iran war.

Though futile without GOP support, Democrats have for months signaled they intend to use special war powers votes to force Republicans into politically fraught votes, one of the few levers the minority party can wield.

Ahead of the vote, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer urged Republicans to “do Trump a favor” by voting to rein him in now.

“Republicans must get out in front of a looming catastrophe in Cuba before it gets even worse, as they should have done with Trump’s war in Iran,” Schumer said.

Trump has repeatedly floated a regime change push in Cuba, a U.S. adversary for nearly seven decades, and said earlier this month the Caribbean island nation is “next.”

The Pentagon under the Trump administration has increasingly made the Western Hemisphere a strategic priority, ramping up the U.S. naval presence in the Caribbean late last year and launching a steady series of attacks against vessels suspected of ferrying narcotics. The buildup culminated in a surprise raid into Venezuela that seized then-leader Nicolás Maduro.

Maduro’s ouster halted critical shipments of Venezuelan oil to Cuba, and the U.S. has imposed an energy blockade, with Trump threatening tariffs on nations that provide oil to Havana. The blockade has deepened the nation’s economic humanitarian crisis and ramped up pressure on the government of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel.

Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, whose state is home to the largest Cuban population in the country, charged Democrats with ignoring human rights violations of Cuba’s government in favor of scoring political points against Trump.

“This president has never said he wants to put boots on the ground,” Scott said. “This is a complete waste of time and it is a complete insult to Cubans in Cuba and Cubans in my state.”

At the same time, the Iran war has put Cuba on the back burner for now, and Trump has signaled the U.S. may not be prepared yet to upend the regime there. Trump last month permitted a Russian oil tanker to dock in Cuba, with the White House citing “humanitarian reasons.” Russia said shortly after that it plans to send a second tanker.