Sen Rand Paul says US is in ‘ongoing war’ with Venezuela to acquire oil

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said Sunday that the United States has entered an “ongoing war” with Venezuela following recent U.S. actions involving Venezuela.

Participating in NBC’s “Meet the Press” program, Paul said that the United States continues to disagree with Venezuela over oil.

“This is an act of war, an ongoing war; an ongoing war to continue to take their oil, to distribute it,” Paul said.

“I still hope this works out for the best, but we are still in an active war with Venezuela,” he continued.

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“We still have hundreds of ships with the coast under a 100% blockade,” the senator added.

This followed the US operation to attack Venezuela and arrest its president. Nicolas Maduroand the Trump administration’s subsequent seizure of an oil tanker from the country.

Venezuela is one of the largest oil producers, and the oil industry has become a focus of the Trump administration. Oil sales to the United States will begin immediately with an initial shipment of approximately 30 to 50 million barrels, and shipments will continue indefinitely, officials said.

“This Oil will be sold at the Market Price and this money will be controlled by me as President of the United States to ensure that it is used for the benefit of Venezuela and the people of the United States!” Trump previously wrote at Truth Social.

Venezuela is one of the largest oil producers, and the oil industry has become a focus of the Trump administration. (Getty Images)

Trump also said the United States will continue to “rule” Venezuela for much longer than a few months. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have said they would do so. Make time for VenezuelaNow, under the leadership of acting interim president Delcy Rodriguez, he is trying to get to a place where elections can be held.

According to a poll conducted by Quinnipiac University, more than half of US voters oppose the Trump administration’s management of Venezuela.

Paul is part of a bipartisan group of lawmakers who want to limit Trump’s ability to launch further attacks against Venezuela following a recent move by the U.S. military to strike the country and capture Maduro, which the Kentucky Republican said amounts to war.

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Sen. Rand Paul is part of a bipartisan group of lawmakers who want to limit President Donald Trump’s ability to launch further attacks against Venezuela. (Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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The group tried last week to pass a War Powers resolution that would prevent the president from taking additional action without congressional approval, but that effort failed in the Senate.

“The only problem with the war powers vote is that because it didn’t happen, a lot of Republicans are saying, ‘Oh, that’s a possibility. I’m not going to tie his hands going forward,'” Paul said Sunday.

“The problem is that if you wait until after an invasion when the administration is defending, we don’t know it’s a war until we count the casualties. That’s kind of a crazy definition of war, because our job is to start or declare war,” he added.