Senate Republicans block measure to curb Trump's power to invade Cuba

WASHINGTON ‒ A group of Democratic senators led by Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine tried ‒ and failed ‒ to advance a resolution prohibiting President Donald Trump from taking unilateral military action in Cuba, days after Havana publicly rejected U.S. demands.

In a mostly party-line April 28 vote, 50 Republicans and one Democrat blocked the Senate from taking up the measure. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was the Democrat who voted across the aisle.

Two GOP lawmakers, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky, bucked their party, joining with Democrats in hopes of curbing Trump's actions in the Caribbean nation.

Democrats were aiming to keep the U.S. military from engaging in hostilities in or against Cuba without congressional approval. Trump has been warning of a takeover of Cuba, feeding anxiety among Democratic lawmakers who are fearful that negotiations with Havana are a pretense for an invasion.

"When there are efforts by an executive to go too far, then it is up to Congress to stand up and provide a check," Kaine said in remarks on the Senate floor ahead of the failed vote. He has led similar attempts in the Senate to stop military hostilities in Iran.

Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vermont, told USA TODAY he thinks the Trump administration’s strategy in Cuba “is to crush them into dust.”

“It’s a policy that’s going to result in suffering for even more people,” he said. “There was a very solid basis for Sen. Kaine’s war powers resolution.”

The Trump administration has been engaged in talks with the Cuban government to lift the United States' near-total blockade on oil in exchange for expansive economic and governance reforms and the release of detainees. But the Cuban government blew off a U.S.-imposed deadline this week to release high-profile political prisoners as a show of good faith.

The president has not said what he will do in response, although he promised a "new dawn for Cuba" this month and said the United States "may stop by" the communist nation when it finishes a military campaign in Iran. USA TODAY reported exclusively in April that the Pentagon was preparing for a potential operation on the island, located 90 miles south of Florida, in case Trump decides to take military action.

Democratic lawmakers have used their limited resources to try to keep diplomatic talks alive. After two House progressives visited Havana, Democrats revived a push to lift the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba. They're also trying to bring a bill to the floor that would halt Trump's ability to attack Cuba using federal funds.

After the Senate resolution failed, Kaine hurried out of the chamber. Asked on his way out whether regime change in Cuba could be imminent, he told a reporter, “I have no reason to believe that it is. I’m not saying that it isn’t.”

Sen. John Hoeven, R-North Dakota, wouldn’t elaborate on whether the Trump administration’s priorities in Cuba have been made clear to GOP lawmakers like himself. He told USA TODAY he trusts Secretary of State Marco Rubio, an ex-Florida senator who's leading the talks, to handle issues in the Western Hemisphere.

“They could not have a better point person," Hoeven said of Rubio, who's Cuban American.

Kaine said in the days leading up to the vote that he was optimistic about Republican support for his bill. Yet hours beforehand, GOP senators who might have sided with him indicated they would not defy Trump.

Sen. Todd Young, an Indiana Republican who voted for a similar measure to restrict strikes in Venezuela earlier this year, told reporters the war powers votes "have devolved into a partisan political exercise." 

"There hasn't been a serious effort, in my mind, to grapple with issues like what happens if you precipitously withdraw troops," Young said.