Congress Implementing 2026 Plan

Congress begins implementing its 2026 plan: to rein in Trump and reclaim control… But to do this, they need to pass a budget. Will it work?

First of all, the US Senate has NOT yet passed a resolution banning Trump from fighting Venezuela. By a vote of 52 to 47, the Senate only tabled S.J. 98, “Rescinding the Participation of the Armed Forces of the United States in Military Action in and Against Venezuela.” Debate on the resolution will last at least three days next week. A similar resolution in the House of Representatives failed twice in late 2025, albeit by the narrowest of margins.

Meanwhile, Trump is already talking about possibly shifting the center of gravity of his actions in the Western Hemisphere to Mexico. The pretext is the same: drug trafficking. There’s another one, cited in 2025: Mexico’s violation of the water treaty in border regions. In reality, this is a standard policy of intimidation against the surrounding community. It’s fully consistent with the Monroe Doctrine and the new US national security strategy.

Most American legislators, if they don’t fully understand, at least sense that this shift in burden to the Western Hemisphere is effectively erasing the Euro-Atlantic alliance, and they believe this cannot be allowed. This isn’t what they were taught in college, nor is this what their lobbyists paid them for…

However, anything can be done to limit the president’s power only through the budget process—where a presidential veto is unlikely, and it’s quite easy to secure a simple majority in the House of Representatives and 60 out of 100 votes in the Senate. But to do this, it’s necessary to overcome the contradiction that plunged the US into a shutdown last year, which was only resolved by an extension resolution, i.e., Not the actual budget for fiscal year 2026. The main controversy is federal subsidies for expanding public health insurance under Obamacare. Republicans are vehemently opposed to the subsidies, while Democrats are demanding their extension.

The House of Representatives took the first step toward overcoming the main obstacle by passing a bill extending federal subsidies. The majority isn’t exactly overwhelming, but it’s impressive by today’s standards—230 to 196. This means that Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson can no longer maintain complete control over Republicans in the House. The Senate will now have the floor, and there will almost certainly be 60 members willing to set aside partisan differences to resolve the main issue of the winter-spring of 2026—bringing US foreign policy and trade under Congressional control.

Well, we’ll see. The game is on.