defectors

WASHINGTON — The Senate is headed toward a vote Wednesday on a war powers resolution that would put a check on President Trump’s ability to carry out further military attacks on Venezuela, but the president was putting intense pressure on his fellow Republicans to vote down the measure.

Trump has lashed out at five GOP senators who joined with Democrats to advance the resolution last week, raising doubts that the measure will ultimately pass. Yet even the possibility that the Republican-controlled Senate would defy Trump on such a high-profile vote revealed the growing alarm on Capitol Hill about the president’s expanding foreign policy ambitions.

Democrats are forcing the vote after U.S. troops captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid earlier this month.

“Here we have one of the most successful attacks ever and they find a way to be against it. It’s pretty amazing. And it’s a shame,” Trump said at a speech in Michigan Tuesday. He also hurled insults at several of the Republicans who advanced the legislation, calling Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky a “stone cold loser” and Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine “disasters.”

Trump’s latest comments followed earlier phone calls with the senators, which they described as terse. The president’s fury underscored how the war powers vote has taken on new political significance as Trump also threatens military action to accomplish his goal of possessing Greenland.

The legislation, even if passed by the Senate, has virtually no chance of becoming law because it would eventually need to be signed by Trump himself. But it represented both a test of GOP loyalty to the president and a marker for how much leeway the Republican-controlled Senate is willing to give Trump to use the military abroad.

At least one Republican reconsiders

Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican who helped advance the war powers resolution last week, has indicated he may change his position.

Hawley said that Trump’s message during a phone call last week was that the legislation “really ties my hands.” The senator said he had a follow-up phone call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio that was “really positive.”

Hawley said that Rubio told him Monday “point blank, we’re not going to do ground troops.” The senator said he also received assurances that the Trump administration will follow constitutional requirements if it becomes necessary to deploy troops again to the South American country.

Hawley’s position left the vote margin for the resolution, which advanced 52-47 last week, razor thin.

However, Collins told reporters Wednesday she will still support the resolution. Murkowski and Paul have also indicated they won’t switch.

That left Sen. Todd Young, an Indiana Republican, with the crucial vote. He declined repeatedly to discuss his position but said he was “giving it some thought.”

Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, who has brought a series of war powers resolutions this year, said he wasn’t surprised at Trump’s reaction to senators asserting their ability to put a check on the president.

“They’re furious at the notion that Congress wants to be Congress,” he said. “But I think people who ran for the Senate, they want to be U.S. senators and they don’t want to just vote their own irrelevance.”

What is the war powers resolution?

Under the Constitution, Congress alone has the ability to declare war. But U.S. presidents have long stretched their powers to use the might of the U.S. military around the globe.

Ohio State University professor Peter Mansoor, a military historian and retired U.S. Army colonel with multiple combat tours, said that trend since World War II allows Congress to shirk responsibility for war and put all the risk on the president.

In the post-Vietnam War era, lawmakers tried to take back some of their authority over wartime powers with the War Powers Resolution of 1973. It allows lawmakers to hold votes on resolutions to restrict a president from using military force in specific conflicts without congressional approval.

“Politicians tend to like to evade responsibility for anything — but then this gets you into forever wars,” Mansoor said.

Trump’s shifting rationale for military intervention

Trump has used a series of legal arguments for his campaign against Maduro.

As he built up a naval force in the Caribbean and destroyed vessels that were allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela, the Trump administration tapped wartime powers under the global war on terror by designating drug cartels as terrorist organizations.

The administration has claimed the capture of Maduro himself was actually a law enforcement operation, essentially to extradite the Venezuelan president to stand trial for charges in the U.S. that were filed in 2020.

In a classified briefing Tuesday, senators reviewed the Trump administration’s still undisclosed legal opinion for using the military for the operation. It was described as a lengthy document.

But lawmakers, including a significant number of Republicans, have been alarmed by Trump’s recent foreign policy talk. In recent weeks, he has pledged that the U.S. will “run” Venezuela for years to come, threatened military action to take possession of Greenland and told Iranians protesting their government that “ help is on its way.”

Senior Republicans have tried to massage the relationship between Trump and Denmark, a NATO ally that holds Greenland as a semi-autonomous territory. But Danish officials emerged from a meeting with Vice President JD Vance and Rubio Wednesday saying a “fundamental disagreement” over Greenland remains.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Trump’s recent aggression amounted to a “dangerous drift towards endless war.”

More than half of U.S. adults believe President Trump has “gone too far” in using the U.S. military to intervene in other countries, according to a new AP-NORC poll.

How Senate will tackle the war powers resolution

Republican Senate leaders were looking for ways to defuse the conflict between their members and Trump as well as move on quickly to other business.

In a floor speech Wednesday morning, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., vented his frustration as he questioned whether this war powers resolution should be prioritized under the chamber’s rules.

“We have no troops on the ground in Venezuela. We’re not currently conducting military operations there,” he said. “But Democrats are taking up this bill because their anti-Trump hysteria knows no bounds.”

Republican leaders could move to dismiss the measure under the argument that it is irrelevant to the current situation in Venezuela, but that procedure would still receive a vote.

House Democrats have also filed a similar war powers resolution and can force a vote on it as soon as next week.

Groves writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Lisa Mascaro and Joey Cappelletti in Washington and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.

Dec. 29 (Asia Today) — North Korean defector groups on Monday urged South Korea’s Unification Ministry to halt its push to replace the official term for defectors, warning that one leading alternative could be misunderstood as meaning people who “look toward” North Korea.

Five defector organizations, including the Committee for North Korean Democracy and the North Korea Strategy Center, held a news conference at the National Assembly and issued a joint statement calling for the government to stop reviewing the term change and to release the results of a public opinion survey conducted from late September to early October, organizers said.

The groups objected in particular to “Bukhyangmin,” a term the ministry has weighed as a possible replacement for “North Korean defectors.” They said the word could be confused with similar-sounding phrases that imply sympathy for North Korea, framing it as an attack on defector identity.

The dispute also intensified after Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said during a Dec. 19 work report that “all” defectors strongly reject the current term, a claim critics said overgeneralized defector views. The ministry has said Chung asked roughly 60 residents at Hanawon, a government resettlement and education center in Anseong, Gyeonggi Province, during a private visit on Dec. 5 and that all those present supported a change.

At the news conference, Kang Cheol-hwan, head of the North Korea Strategy Center, questioned whether the new term would make defectors appear to be people who admire North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Other speakers argued the current term reflects “escape” from the North Korean system and symbolizes resistance to repression.

A broader umbrella group, the National Association of North Korean Defectors, also issued a separate statement demanding a public apology for what it called distorted remarks and urging the government to guarantee public deliberation if it changes terminology tied to defectors, organizers said.

The ministry has said it is reviewing whether to adjust legal terminology and social usage to reduce negative connotations and support settlement and social integration.

Previous surveys have shown mixed views among defectors. A Korea Institute for National Unification survey found about 59% of defector respondents said a change was needed, but preferences among alternatives were split, with “Hanamin,” “Tongilmin” and “Bukhyangmin” drawing similar levels of support, news reports said.

The Unification Ministry has not announced a final decision and has said it is internally reviewing whether to disclose results from its latest survey, according to local reports.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Dec. 24 (Asia Today) — People Power Party lawmaker Park Chung-kwon, a former North Korean defector, criticized the Unification Ministry’s plan to change the designation for North Korean defectors to “Northbound residents,” calling it “an idea you’d expect from a dictatorship.”

Park made the remarks Wednesday on Ato TV’s “Shin Yul’s Political Check,” saying he felt uneasy about what he described as a political intent to curry favor with the North Korean regime.

Park said some defectors feel discomfort with the current term, but argued the cause was misidentified. Changing the label to “Northbound residents” would not improve matters, he said.

He said the discomfort stems from social prejudice and alienation tied to their identity as people from North Korea, not from the wording itself.

Park said the fundamental solution is for defectors to settle successfully and integrate into South Korean society as citizens. He also claimed most defectors oppose the proposed change.

Park said the term “North Korean defectors” reflects people who came to South Korea seeking freedom and escaping oppression by the North Korean regime, and argued that meaning is not reflected in “Northbound residents.”

He also alleged the Unification Ministry conducted a survey on the name change targeting defectors and provided their personal information to a polling company without their consent. Park said he requested materials related to the survey results but the ministry has not disclosed them. He claimed there was no consensus among defectors and no discussion on the change.

Separately, Park criticized the revised Information and Communications Network Act passed in a National Assembly plenary session Wednesday, saying authorities label information as false to shut down the media and the public when it does not suit the ruling camp.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Dec. 23 (Asia Today) — South Korea’s Unification Ministry said Tuesday it will move quickly to decide and implement a change to the official term used for North Korean defectors, replacing it with “North Korean migrants.”

A Unification Ministry official told reporters the ministry plans to reach a conclusion and proceed “as soon as possible” on the terminology change.

The ministry previously said in a work briefing for President Lee Jae-myung on Friday that it would pursue revising the designation. During that briefing, Lee, Prime Minister Kim Min-seok and Unification Minister Chung Dong-young used the term “North Korean migrants” instead of “North Korean defectors,” according to the report.

Chung said at the meeting that defectors broadly reject the current term “defector,” but the report said a significant number are also voicing opposition to “North Korean migrants.”

The Unification Ministry publicly raised the idea of changing the designation in September and conducted opinion polling, but the results have not been released, the report said.

– Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.