Friday on CNN’s “The Situation Room,” Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) said a naval blockade is an “act of war,” referencing President Donald Trump’s order blocking some oil tankers in and out of Venezuela.
Co-host Pamela Brown said, “I want to pivot to Venezuela because your bipartisan resolution is seeking to block the Trump administration’s hostility toward Venezuela without congressional approval narrowly failed this week. so what do you expect comes next with Venezuela, especially as President Trump says he’s not ruling out war?”
Castro said, “Yeah, I was very disturbed to hear that the president may go forward with a full blown war. This naval blockade is already an act of war. And as you know, there’s been a massive buildup by the president in the Caribbean of U.S. military assets. I hope that cooler heads will prevail and that there won’t be a full blown war. The American people do not want the United States military to invade Venezuela. The people are asking like, why would we do this? And the president himself said it the other day. He said that it was about oil and land. I just have to say that I think that it’s absolutely crazy and wild that after the experience that our country went through of getting into the Iraq war under false pretenses, that an American president would stand in front of the country and say that we’re going to go to war for oil and land. But that’s what this is. It’s about power, it’s about regime change, it’s about oil, it’s about land.”
He added, “Under international law, yes, a naval blockade is an act of war, you’ve committed an act of war. And so, we have to be careful that we don’t go into a full-blown war, and certainly that it doesn’t become a land invasion. Because he talked about, after doing these Caribbean boat strikes, that he was going to transition to land strikes. And again, the American people want us to handle the rising grocery prices and childcare prices and rent prices and all these things. They’re not asking for a big war with Venezuela.”
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