Trump Usaid cuts the earthquake response to limp in Myanmar

China, Russia and India have sent emergency teams and Myanmar supplies devastated by the earthquake. So they have Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam.

The United States, the richest country in the world and once its most generous supplier of foreign aid, have not sent anything.

Also as the Trump president was dismantling The US agency for international development said that the American help was traveling for Myanmar, where a Magnitude earthquake 7.7 Friday, torn through the strongly populated center of the country. More than 1,700 people have been killed, according to the military government of Myanmar, with the budget of the victims who should climb steeply while more bodies are discovered in the rubble and the rescue teams reach remote villages.

But it is not expected that a three -person USAID evaluation team will arrive until Wednesday, people said with knowledge of the distribution efforts. The overall American response was slower than normal circumstances, the people who worked in previous rescue efforts said in the event of catastrophes and aid to Myanmar.

The Chinese research and rescue teams, complete with dogs trained to smell trapped people, are already on the ground in Mandalay, the second largest city in Myanmar and one of the places most deeply affected by the earthquake. China has engaged $ 14 million For the relief of the Myanmar earthquake, sending 126 rescue workers and six dogs, together with medical kits, drones and earthquake detectors.

“Being charitable and being seen as a charity is needed an American foreign policy,” said Michael Schiffer, an assistant of the USAID Bureau for Asia from 2022 until the beginning of this year. “If we do not present ourselves and China presents itself, this sends a rather strong message.”

Sunday, the American embassy in Myanmar announced on his website that the United States would provide up to $ 2 million in aid, dispersed through humanitarian groups based in Myanmar. But many of the systems necessary to channel American aid to Myanmar have been broken.

On Friday, while some Washington employees in the Usaid office for humanitarian assistance were preparing a response to the earthquake, they received Dismissal email at the agency level. Career diplomats who worked for Usaid and other employees had been prepared for layoffs for weeks; Trump’s appointed politicians in Washington had already fired most of the contractors who work for the agency.

Employees who received dismissal notices were said to have had to go home that afternoon. Some had coordinated with the help missions to Bangkok and Manila, who manage the response to catastrophes in Asia.

Two of the Washington employees expected to move this winter to Yangon, Myanmar, and Bangkok to work as a humanitarian assistance councilors outside the US missions there. But those positions have been cut. If they hadn’t been, the two employees would have been on the field to organize urgent responses to the earthquake.

After the success of the disaster on Friday, the American Embassy in Yangon sent a cable to the USAID headquarters in Washington to start the process of evaluating the needs of help and obtain help outside the door. And the next day, a political person in charge of the Trump Administration in USAID, Team MeisburgerHe held a call with the officials of the national security agencies to discuss a plan.

But Mr. Meisburger said that although there was an answer, nobody should expect the agency’s skills to be those who were in the past, a person said with a direct knowledge of the call.

A USAID spokesman did not respond to a commentary request.

The agency generally has access to food and emergency supplies in the warehouses in Dubai and Subang Jaya, in Malaysia. But the big question now is how quickly, after being almost completely dismantled, it can get goods from those places in Myanmar. Goods include doctors kits that can each satisfy the health care needs of 30,000 people for over three months.

In addition to career diplomats, the ranks of the office for humanitarian assistance of the agency have included contractors specialized in crisis that live all over the world and can quickly take sides in what are called response teams to catastrophes. Many of these contractors have been fired and the infrastructure to support them in Washington and other offices – people who can book flights and manage payments, for example, have been paralyzed by the cuts in the last two months.

The agency usually also used to also insert certified research and rescue teams in Virginia and southern California on alert for a possible deployment in the disaster area, but the transport contracts for these teams have been cut, said a former employee of the aid agency.

The annual allocations of the USAID for Myanmar were approximately $ 320 million last year. About $ 170 million were for humanitarian work and the rest was for development initiatives, such as democracy and health. Only a few million dollars of projects remain operational, although some of these programs, such as one for maternal and childish health, have not received funding despite being said that the initiatives are not closed.

Before the cuts, the annual costs of total US foreign aid were lower than 1 % of the federal budget.

During a press conference in Jamaica last week, the secretary of state Marco Rubio said that the United States will continue to work on foreign aid, although in a drastically reduced form. He said that the goal was to provide aid “which is strategically aligned with our foreign policy priorities and the priorities of our host countries and our national states with which we are a partner”.

Friday, Tammy Bruce, spokesman for the State Department, said that the crisis teams were ready to take sides in Myanmar.

The ability of the United States to provide life -saving aid has been hindered not only by cuts to budgets but by obstacles in Myanmar himself. Since he took power in 2021, the Myanmar military junta has closed the country from western influences. Myanmar is now involved in the civil war, with a loose coalition of opposition forces that have destroyed control of over half of the country’s territory.

The United States and other Western nations responded to the brutal record of human rights of the junta with sanctions and the military leader who orchestrated the coup, the Senior Min Aung Hlaing general, blocked himself against the West, thanking China and Russia for the ideological and economic support.

However, in the hours following the earthquake, General Min Aung Hlaing said he accepted rescue aid outside the disaster – and not only from countries with friendly relations with the military regime.

Myanmar experts claim to be worried that part of the help crosses the junta It could be deviated to the armed forces. The Myanmar army is under -childhood and short of morals as he fights the resistance forces on many fronts.

In Mandalay, the residents said they were upset to see the soldiers who relax on the sites of the collapsed buildings. Some played video games on their phones, while the locals used their hands to leverage the bricks from the rubble.

However, the Chinese and Russian research and rescue teams, equipped in orange and blue uniforms, were digging through the wreck in Mandalay Sunday and a Belgian team was making their way north.

A good part of the USAID funding had been dedicated to the areas of the country not under the control of the junta. American assistance went to health and school for internal displaced people. He supported the local administrations that are trying to form mini-governments in the conflict areas. And he tried to provide an emergency relief to the civilians affected by Junta Air.

In the Sagaing region, a resistance stronghold against the junta, the military jets of Myanmar made two landing shots on the villages of Nwel Khwe hours after the earthquake destroyed the buildings there, adding more terror to the life of the residents.

“It’s as if Min Aung Hlaing wanted to make sure you die, if not from the earthquake, therefore from its attacks,” said a village inhabitant, Ko Aung Kyaw.

But Mr. Aung Kyaw said he didn’t expect foreigners, American or not, could alleviate the situation. Sagaing has suffered for four years and his people died thousands of people in the fight against the junta. Foreign aid, he said, most likely it would end up benefiting from the military regime, not those who need it most.

“In the end, we only have ourselves,” he said. “We have resisted for four years, and it is clear that we will have to find our way to go, no matter what.”

Stephanie Nolen Contribution reporting,