US intervention in Venezuela could test Donald Trump’s ability to hold GOP together in an election year – Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s military intervention in Venezuela will be a new test of his ability to hold together a restive Republican coalition during a difficult election year that could be defined by domestic concerns such as health care and affordability.

While most Republicans lined up behind the president immediately after the stunning U.S. mission to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and bring him to New York to face criminal charges, signs of unease emerged across the party within the party. In particular, Trump’s comments about positioning the United States to “lead” Venezuela have raised fears that he is abandoning the “America First” philosophy that has long distinguished him from more traditional Republicans and helped fuel his political rise.

“It’s the same model of Washington that we’re so sick of, that doesn’t serve the American people, but actually serves big business, banks and oil executives,” Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former Trump ally who is resigning Monday, said in an interview Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

These concerns were shared by some not associated with the party’s far right.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, a moderate who is one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the November midterm elections, said in a statement that “the only country the United States of America should ‘rule’ is the United States of America.”

The comments reflect the sensitive dynamic between Trump and his fellow Republicans at the start of an election year in which their party risks losing control of Congress. Although the president’s dominance remains unchallenged, his ironclad grip on the party has faced unusual challenges in recent months. Blocs of Republicans banded together to pressure Trump to release the Jeffrey Epstein files. Others encouraged Trump to take concerns about affordability more seriously.

Trump’s aggressive vision of American domination

Few issues are as central to Trump’s political brand as ensuring that the United States does not become bogged down in seemingly endless foreign conflicts at the expense of its domestic goals. During a 2016 Republican presidential debate, for example, he described the Iraq war as a “big, big mistake.”

But on Saturday, Trump said he was “not afraid of troops on the ground” in Venezuela if it was deemed necessary, and he framed his actions as prioritizing the safety and security of Americans. He expressed an aggressive view of U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere and told reporters that it was important to “surround yourself with good neighbors.”

However, just as in the Iraq War, a president’s initial confidence after dramatic military action can sometimes collide with darker realities that deplete domestic political support.

In Venezuela, US troops could be put in danger again as Trump warns that new military operations could be in the works. An ongoing conflict could worsen the hemisphere’s refugee crisis, a situation the White House has tried to alleviate by strengthening border controls. Additionally, questions arise about how much cooperation the United States will receive from officials still in Venezuela or how easily the country’s oil reserves could be tapped to achieve Trump’s goal of extracting more energy without Maduro.

Trump’s comments this weekend about revitalizing Venezuela’s oil industry are consistent with some of the early criticisms he made of the handling of the Iraq war. In a 2013 speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump said the United States should “take” Iraq’s oil and “pay itself back.”

Frustration over the handling of the Iraq War contributed to major Democratic gains in the 2006 elections and helped create the conditions for Barack Obama to be elected president two years later. Given the baggage surrounding those wars, Trump’s allies insist this weekend’s actions in Venezuela are different.

“Venezuela is nothing like Libya,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on “Meet the Press.” “It’s nothing like Iraq. It’s nothing like Afghanistan. It’s nothing like the Middle East, other than Iranian agents plotting there to plot against America, OK?

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton argued that Manuel Noriega’s ouster in Panama in 1989 was a better comparison.

“It was a successful operation,” Cotton said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I believe that in the long term, that will be the case too.”

Yet amid pushback against the idea of ​​the United States taking broad responsibilities in running Venezuela, Rubio has suggested a more limited role. He said Washington would not deal with the day-to-day governance of the South American country other than enforcing an existing “oil quarantine” in Venezuela.

There isn’t much organized GOP opposition to the strikes

It is not clear that strong, organized opposition to Trump’s Venezuela policies is emerging within the Republican Party. Instead, many lawmakers appear to be giving the Republican administration some leeway and, at most, issuing a few warnings.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who faces a potentially tough re-election campaign this year, called Maduro a “narcoterrorist and international drug trafficker” who should even face trial, as she said “Congress should have known about the operation earlier and must be involved as the situation develops.”

Even Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who is often critical of military interventions, did not specifically oppose Trump’s actions. He wrote on social media that “time will tell whether regime change in Venezuela will succeed without significant financial or human costs.”

Many Democrats denounced Trump’s actions in Venezuela, and the Democratic National Committee quickly sought to raise money by launching “another unconstitutional war from Trump.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, D-N.Y., rejected the administration’s argument that it was fighting drug crimes, saying on Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the strike was part of an “old and obvious pattern” in which an “unpopular president – ​​failing the economy and losing his grip on power at home – decides to launch a war for regime change abroad.”

AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report.