Democrats Push Law to Stop Trump from Bombing North Korea

Democratic U.S. senators have introduced a bill in the hope that they can restrain President Donald Trump from launching a nuclear first strike on North Korea on his own, highlighting the issue days before the Republican’s first presidential trip to Asia.

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If passed, the measure may prevent Trump or any other U.S. president from launching an attack on North Korea or spending any money on a military strike without congressional approval, unless it has first attacked the United States.

Tensions between Washington and Pyongyang have mounted in the wake of nuclear weapons tests by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea – as North Korea is officially known – and bellicose tweets revealing a disdain for diplomacy on the part of Trump.

The president´s casual manner in dealing with the crisis has alarmed U.S. lawmakers and allies such as South Korea as he has steadily ratcheted up his belligerent tone in dealing with Pyongyang, threatening “fire and fury” while derisively calling the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un the "Little Rocket Man."

“I worry that the president’s enthusiasm will not be checked by the advisers around him,” Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, the legislation’s lead sponsor, told reporters on a conference call.

Some Republicans have also expressed concern about Trump’s rhetoric, but none co-sponsored the bill backed by seven Democrats and independent Senator Bernie Sanders.

“I do not believe that the mere possession of a weapon that can hit the United States constitutes is an imminent threat,” added Murphy, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “If that were the case, then the president would have full war-making authority against any country that has an ICBM capable of hitting the United States with a nuclear warhead.”

Republicans control majorities in both the Senate and House, and there has been no indication that congressional leaders would allow a vote. Similar measures introduced earlier this year have largely floundered.

However, backers said they might try to pass it later this year by introducing it as an amendment to legislation such as a must-pass spending bill.

“I have confidence that if this came to a vote on the floor of the Senate, it would prevail,” Murphy said.

In the face of an increasingly aggressive White House, Democratic lawmakers have been trying to wrest back more control over foreign policy from the White House.

“It’s time to take Trump seriously as he keeps hinting, over and over, that he wants to go to war with North Korea,” Murphy tweeted earlier this month. “Trump’s war drum rhetoric seems like over the top braggadocio but why assume it’s just bluster?”

On Monday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on a new authorization for the use of military force, or AUMF, to exert some authority over the campaign against Islamic State and other militant groups.

At that hearing, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said Trump does not have the authority to use force against North Korea without an imminent threat, but they did not define what such a threat would be.