US senators denounce Trump administration’s ‘paltry’ response to Myanmar quake
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Members of the Chinese Red Cross International Emergency Response Team working at a collapsed residential building in Mandalay on March 31.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Edward Wong
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WASHINGTON – Democratic senators sent a letter to the Trump administration on April 2 criticising what they called the paltry US aid response to the earthquake in Myanmar,
The six senators said in the letter that the United States appeared to be failing the first test of its ability to respond to a humanitarian crisis in the wake of the Trump administration’s drastic cuts to foreign aid and dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAid)
“We are deeply concerned that the administration’s response is failing to meet both our moral and strategic objectives – sending a signal to countries around the world that our adversaries are more reliable and trustworthy than the United States,” the senators wrote.
The New York Times obtained a copy of the letter, which was organised by the offices of Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the ranking member on the Banking Committee, and Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, who is on the Foreign Relations Committee. The other senators who signed were Tim Kaine of Virginia, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Jeff Merkley of Oregon. The senators sent it to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Mr Rubio and a political appointee at the State Department, Mr Pete Marocco, oversaw the slashing of foreign aid, and Mr Bessent’s agency oversees financial sanctions on Myanmar. The senators said in the letter that the US government should grant sanctions waivers to any earthquake relief going into Myanmar.
The US did not send any specialist aid teams to Myanmar after the earthquake hit on March 28. More than 2,700 people have died as buildings there and in neighbouring Thailand collapsed, according to the ruling authoritarian military leaders of Myanmar. The junta asked other nations for help. China, Russia and India sent teams and supplies, as did Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore.
As at this past weekend, the US had not even managed to get a three-person assessment team into the country, the Times reported on March 30.
The State Department spokesperson said on March 28 that crisis teams were on standby, but the severe cuts since late January have decimated the infrastructure for the US government’s Disaster Assistance Response Teams. Many of the contractor specialists for those teams were fired in the USAid cuts, and the agency’s offices in Washington that would help with transportation and payment logistics have been hobbled.
Two agency employees who had expected to be posted this winter to Myanmar and Thailand as humanitarian advisers were told by senior officials weeks ago to stay in Washington because the positions had been cut. On March 28, as those two employees and other colleagues were coordinating responses to the earthquake, they received agency-wide e-mails telling them they would be laid off. The e-mails told everyone to go home that day.
The Trump administration has also cut contracts for transportation used to send firefighters and rescue workers in Virginia and Southern California to global disaster zones when requested by other countries.
The total US government annual spending on foreign aid had been less than 1 per cent of the federal budget.
The US Embassy in Myanmar announced on March 30 that it would send up to US$2 million (S$2.68 million) in aid, much less than recent American administrations have sent for similar disasters.
The senators’ letter cited the Times story from March 30 that revealed the shortcomings of the Trump administration’s response.
“Even as the administration has wittingly undercut our ability to efficiently save lives and promote US interests, we call on the State Department and USAid to rapidly assess what the United States can still do for people in Burma, including with resources already in the region,” the senators said, using the US government’s preferred name for Myanmar.
They added that the Treasury Department should authorise “all transactions related to earthquake relief efforts in Burma that would otherwise be prohibited by US sanctions”.
On March 31, Ms Tammy Bruce, the State Department spokesperson, said the US government’s assessment team was “in the process of being present right there”, and that disaster experts in Washington, Manila and Bangkok were trying to help. NYTIMES
