The US Senate on Wednesday gave final passage to an annual military policy bill that will authorise US$901 billion in defence programmes while pressuring Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to provide lawmakers with video of strikes on alleged drug boats in international water near Venezuela.

The annual National Defence Authorization Act, which raises troop pay by 3.8 percent, gained bipartisan backing as it moved through Congress.

It passed the Senate on a 77-20 vote before lawmakers planned to leave Washington for a holiday break.

Two Senate Republicans – Rand Paul and Mike Lee – and 18 Democrats voted against the bill.

The White House has indicated that it is in line with President Donald Trump's national security priorities.

However, the legislation, which ran over 3,000 pages, revealed some points of friction between Congress and the Pentagon as the Trump administration reorients its focus away from security in Europe and towards Central and South America.

The bill pushes back on recent moves by the Pentagon. It demands more information on boat strikes in the Caribbean, requires that the US keep its troop levels in Europe at current levels and sends some military aid to Ukraine.

But overall, the bill represents a compromise between the parties. It implements many of Trump's executive orders and proposals on eliminating diversity and inclusion efforts in the military and grants emergency military powers at the US border with Mexico.

It also enhances congressional oversight of the Department of Defence, repeals several years-old war authorisations and seeks to overhaul how the Pentagon purchases weapons.

“We're about to pass, and the president will enthusiastically sign, the most sweeping upgrades to DoD's business practices in 60 years,” said Senator Roger Wicker, the Republican chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Still, the sprawling bill did face objections from both Democratic and Republican leadership on the Senate Commerce Committee and the head of the National Transportation Safety Board.

That’s because the legislation could allow military aircraft to obtain a waiver to operate without broadcasting their precise location, as an Army helicopter had done before a midair collision with an airliner over Washington, DC, in January that killed 67 people.

Meanwhile, Republicans and Democrats agreed to language in the defence bill that threatened to withhold a quarter of Hegseth’s travel budget until he provided unedited video of the strikes, as well as the orders authorising them, to the House and Senate Committees on Armed Services.

The committees are investigating a September 2 strike – the first of the campaign – that killed two people who had survived an initial attack on their boat.

Lawmakers have been caught by surprise by the Trump administration several times in the past year, including by a move to pause intelligence sharing with Ukraine and a decision to reduce US troop presence in Nato countries in eastern Europe.

The defence legislation requires that Congress be kept in the loop on decisions like that going forward, as well as when top military brass are removed.

The Pentagon is also required, under the legislation, to keep at least 76,000 troops and major equipment stationed in Europe unless Nato allies are consulted and there is a determination that such a withdrawal is in US interests.

Around 80,000 to 100,000 US troops are usually present on European soil.

A similar requirement also keeps the number of US troops stationed in South Korea at 28,500.

Lawmakers are also pushing back on some Pentagon decisions by authorising US$400 million for each of the next two years to manufacture weapons to be sent to Ukraine. (AP)