Renewed fighting in Middle East pushes oil prices higher
The House voted 214-208 on Thursday to pass a war powers resolution directing President Donald Trump to withdraw U.S. armed forces from hostilities with Iran. Four Republicans joined all Democrats in attendance to support the measure, introduced by Washington Representative Pramila Jayapal, according to The Guardian.
Jayapal said on the House floor that the war has had “no clear mission, no strategy, no end goal,” the Associated Press reported.
The resolution is the second the House has passed since the conflict began in February. The Senate approved a similar measure in June. The AP reported that the Senate is expected to consider a comparable resolution later Thursday.
The Trump administration has argued that such war powers measures are unconstitutional, according to the Guardian. After the first House vote in early June, Trump posted on social media that the effort was “unpatriotic” and “meaningless,” the AP reported.
Representative Greg Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said during debate that the administration was violating the law. “Let me be clear: this body has already spoken. The war powers resolution passed with bipartisan support in the House and the Senate. The Trump administration was required to end its hostilities against Iran. It has not,” Meeks said, according to the Guardian.
Meeks said he plans to introduce legislation to compel House Speaker Mike Johnson to sue Trump to force compliance with the resolutions. The Guardian reported that any such measure is unlikely to advance, as Johnson is a close ally of Trump.
A day before the vote, House Republicans advanced a $95 billion budget blueprint primarily for military needs related to the Iran war, along with a $1.15 trillion defense spending bill, the Guardian reported.
Fighting has renewed in the Middle East, with Iran striking U.S. military bases in the region in recent days amid retaliatory American airstrikes, according to the Guardian. The Tehran-aligned Houthis in Yemen have threatened to halt Saudi oil shipments through the Red Sea and announced Thursday they had attacked two tankers, driving crude prices higher.
Continued American airstrikes are occurring as diplomatic efforts show little public sign of progress, the AP reported. Officials on both sides have dug in on the dispute over the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for global energy that remains largely closed. The war threatens further worldwide economic disruption and is sending fuel prices up ahead of midterm U.S. elections this fall, according to the AP.