US House passes war powers resolution directing Trump to withdraw US military from Iran

Resolution, which comes after similar one in June, is largely symbolic, as Trump administration says it’s unconstitutional

The US House of Representatives on Thursday for the second time passed a war powers resolution directing Donald Trump to withdraw the US military from the conflict with Iran, amid renewed fighting in the Middle East that has driven oil prices to their highest levels in weeks.

The resolution proposed by Democrat Pramila Jayapal passed by a 214-208 vote, with four Republicans joining all Democrats in attendance to vote in favor.

Its passage comes after the House last month approved a similar resolution, which the Senate later approved in a significant bipartisan rebuke of the president’s decision to join Israel in attacking Iran in February.

The resolutions are nonetheless largely symbolic, as the Trump administration has argued such measures are unconstitutional. In debate ahead of the vote, the top Democrat on the House foreign affairs committee, Greg Meeks, accused the president of 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.

He added that he planned on introducing legislation to compel Mike Johnson, the House speaker, to sue Trump to force his compliance with the resolutions. Johnson is a close ally of Trump, and any such measure is unlikely to advance in this Congress.

The resolution’s passage came a day after House Republicans advanced both a $95bn budget blueprint that will chiefly be spent on military needs related to the Iran war, and a $1.15tn defense spending bill.

Fighting has meanwhile renewed in the Middle East, with Iran striking US military bases around the region in recent days amid retaliatory American airstrikes. 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, which drove crude prices upwards.