Trump cuts off the United States Agency for International Development

China, Russia and India sent emergency and supplies to Myanmar, which was transferred to the earthquake. So you have Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam.

The United States, the richest country in the world, and as soon as it did not send its most external aid, nothing.

Even as President Trump was dismantling He said that the American Agency for International Development said that American assistance was on its way to Myanmar, where a 7.7 earthquake Trepeted in the center of the populated country on Friday. More than 1700 people have been killed, according to the military government in Myanmar, where the death toll is expected to climb sharply with the discovery of more bodies in the rubble and rescue teams that reach remote villages.

However, the American Evaluation Team is expected to arrive at three people until Wednesday. The total American response was slower than normal circumstances, as the people who worked on relief efforts in previous disasters as well as help to Myanmar.

Chinese search and rescue teams, complete with dogs trained to inhale the trapped people, are already on the ground in Mandalay, the second largest city in Myanmar and one of the most affected places of the earthquake. China has 14 million dollars pledged For Myanmar Quick RLIEF, 126 rescue workers and six dogs, along with medical groups, drones and earthquakes.

“Be charitable and consider charitable serves US foreign policy,” said Michael Chevir, an assistant official at the US Agency for International Development of Asia from 2022. Earlier this year. “If we do not appear and China appears, this sends a very strong message.”

On Sunday, the US embassy in Myanmar announced on its website that the United States will provide up to two million dollars in aid, through the human -based humanitarian groups. But many systems needed to break American aid to Myanmar have been shattered.

Friday, since some employees in Washington at the US Agency for International Development for Humanitarian Aid were preparing to respond to the earthquake, they received Email messaging agency. The job diplomats working at the United States Agency for International Development and other employees were preparing to lay off workers for weeks; Political appointed Trump in Washington launched most of the agency’s contractors.

Employees who received the slogans of workers were told to return home that afternoon. Some were coordinating with relief tasks in Bangkok and Manila, which dealt with the disaster response in Asia.

Two employees in Washington expected this winter to Yangon, in Myanmar, and to Bangkok to work as consultants for humanitarian assistance from American missions there. But these situations were cut. If they were not, the two employees would be on the ground to organize urgent responses to the earthquake.

After the disaster was struck on Friday, the American embassy in Yangon Kabul sent to the headquarters of the US International Development Agency in Washington to start the assessment of aid needs and get assistance from the door. The next day, the Trump administration is appointed to the US Agency for International Development, Meisburger teamHe made a call with national security agencies to discuss the plan.

But Mr. Meisburger said that although there will be a response, no one should expect the agency’s capabilities to be what they were in the past.

A spokesman for the US International Development Agency did not respond to a request for comment.

The agency usually enjoys access to supply of food and emergency in warehouses in Dubai, Sobang Jaya, Malaysia. But the big question now is how quickly it is almost completely dismantled, it can get goods from those places to Myanmar. Goods include medical groups, each can serve health care needs of 30,000 people for more than three months.

Regardless of job diplomats, the ranks of the Agency for Humanitarian Assistance included contractors who live all over the world and can spread them rapidly in the so -called disaster assistance teams. Many of these contractors have been expelled, and the infrastructure of their support was paralyzed in Washington and other offices – people who can reserve flights and pay payments, for example – due to discounts during the past two months.

A former relief employee said that the agency usually puts the approved search and rescue teams in Virginia and South California on alert to spread them in the disaster area, but the transport contracts for these teams were reduced.

The USA’s annual International Development Agency’s allocations amounted to about 320 million dollars last year. About $ 170 million of this was humanitarian work, and the rest were for development initiatives, such as building democracy and health. Projects valued at a few million dollars are still only operating, although some of these programs, such as mother and child health, have not received funding despite the failure to close initiatives.

Before the discounts, the annual costs of total US foreign aid were less than 1 percent of the federal budget.

At a press conference in Jamaica last week, Foreign Minister Marco Rubio said that the United States will continue to work foreign aid, despite its significant decrease. He said that the goal of this is to provide aid “that is strategically compatible with the priorities of our foreign policy and the priorities of our host countries and our national countries with which we are parties.”

On Friday, Tami Bruce, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that the crises teams were ready to publish in Myanmar.

The United States’s ability to provide life -saving assistance not only by budget cuts but by obstacles in Myanmar itself. Since the seizure of power in 2021, the Military Council in Myanmar has closed the country from Western influences. Myanmar is now involved in the civil war, with a loose alliance of opposition forces that extracted control of more than half of the country’s lands.

The United States and other western countries have responded to the brutal human rights registry in JUNTA with sanctions, and the head of the military who organized the coup, the chief of General Min Aung Hinging, in the West, and thanked China and Russia for ideological and economic support.

However, in the hours that followed the earthquake, General Min Aung Hinging said he welcomed disaster relief assistance – and not only from countries with friendly relations with the military regime.

Myanmar experts say they are concerned that some aid that passes through the military council can be transferred to the armed forces. The Myanmar Army suffers from a lack of financing and short of morale because it fights the resistance forces on many fronts.

In Mandalay, residents said they are upset to see the soldiers hang around around the collapsed buildings. Play some video games on their phones, while the local population used their hands for the blush from the rubble.

However, the Chinese and Russian teams for search and rescue, equipped with uniform and blue, were digging across the debris in Mandalay on Sunday, and a Belgian band made its way north.

A large part of the United States Development Agency for the country’s regions was allocated and not under the control of JUNTA. American assistance for health care and education has gone to people internally displaced. Local administrations trying to form a small ruler have supported the conflict areas. She tried to provide relief in emergency situations to civilians who were beaten by Junta air strikes.

In the Sagaing area, a stronghold of resistance against JUNTA, Military aircraft carried out two rounds of air strikes on the village of NWEL KHWE hours after the earthquake was destroyed there, adding more terrorism to the lives of the population.

One of the villagers, Ko Aung Kiao, said: “It seems as if Min Aung Hinging wants to make sure we are dying, if not from the earthquake, then from his attacks,” said one of the villagers, Ko Aung Kiao.

But Mr. Aung Kiao said he did not expect foreigners, Americans or otherwise, are able to reduce the situation. SAGAING has suffered for four years, and its people died by thousands in the fight against Junta. He said that external aid will eventually end up taking advantage of the military regime, not those who need it.

“In the end, we just have ourselves,” he said. “We have resisted four years ago until now, and it is clear that we must find our way forward, regardless of what.”

Stephanie Nolein Contribute to the reports,