US aid response in Myanmar faces hurdles after staff cuts

Washington: The US State Department on Monday said that a US Agency for International Development team was heading to Myanmar to help identify the country's most pressing needs in the wake of a devastating earthquake that killed at least 2,000 people.

But a former top USAID official and a source familiar with the matter said the three-member assessment team's departure was delayed by problems obtaining visas from Myanmar's military rulers.

Moreover, they said, the overall Trump administration response has been hobbled by the huge fund cuts, contractor terminations and plans to fire nearly all USAID staff directed by billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.

The response has been hurt by “a lot of internal confusion about capability to respond and willingness to respond,” said Sarah Charles, who headed the agency's humanitarian assistance bureau until February 2024.

Speaking at a daily briefing, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said U.S. disaster experts, including those based in Bangkok, Manila and Washington, were monitoring the situation, and that the assessment team was being sent.

She rejected criticism that funding and personnel cuts were impeding USAID's response and said that Washington was working with partners in Myanmar to get help to affected people.

State media in Myanmar said the death toll had reached 2,065 with more than 3,900 injured and over 270 missing and that the military government had declared a week-long mourning period from Monday.

The U.S. has received a formal request for help from Myanmar's rulers and that "has unlocked a bit more of what we now are able to do," said Bruce, who did not disclose details of what the Myanmar authorities requested.

The U.S. has pledged $2 million in aid "through Myanmar-based humanitarian assistance organizations."

Charles and the source, however, said the DOGE cuts had delayed what would have been the start of a U.S. emergency response within 24 hours of the disaster.

In the meantime, U.S. rivals China and Russia and other countries dispatched emergency help.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Musk in February began the process of closing USAID and merging its operations into the State Department to ensure they conformed with Trump's "America First" policies.

Thousands of staff were placed on administrative leave, hundreds of contractors were fired and more than 5,000 programs terminated, disrupting global humanitarian aid efforts on which millions depend.

On Friday, the day the earthquake struck Myanmar and Thailand, the administration told Congress that it was firing nearly all remaining USAID personnel and closing its foreign missions.

'Zero surge capacity'

Charles and the source said that internal administration deliberations over how the U.S. should participate in the relief efforts in Myanmar contributed to the delayed U.S. response.

The response has been "constrained for sure," said the source, adding that the DOGE cuts left USAID with "zero surge capacity."

Trump political appointees approved sending the assessment team followed by a scaled-down version of a Disaster Assistance Response Team of relief experts to Myanmar, the source said.

Those appointees, however, have yet to agree to restoring contracts with commercial transportation firms that would carry U.S. relief supplies to Myanmar and groups that would distribute the materials inside the country, the source continued.

The processes that trigger rapid USAID disaster responses "that were pretty automatic" no longer are, and the "process of getting approval to do things, the process of deploying people, is all being negotiated in real time," said Charles.

Personnel in Washington and the region who would have been involved in a rapid response all received termination notices on Friday "right in the hours after the earthquake," she said.