Is Donald Trump ready to do business with Myanmar?

Is Donald Trump prepared to do business with Myanmar?

A senior US official has met Myanmar’s leader Min Aung Hlaing for the first time in years

Has Washington’s long-running policy of isolating Myanmar’s military rulers now shifted?

The disclosure that a senior Trump administration official met Min Aung Hlaing last month, along with the removal of some business figures from the US sanctions list, points to a possible change.

Until recently, the US had maintained very limited official contact with the regime after the 2021 coup, when Myanmar’s military removed democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi. More recently, Washington had imposed a series of targeted sanctions on people deemed to be backing the junta.

The meeting, held on 15 and 16 September, involved US Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Michael Vance and took place in Myanmar’s capital, Nay Pyi Taw. On the surface, it was meant to help secure the release of Adam Castillo, a US citizen detained in June after a dispute with the local American Chamber of Commerce.

But Vance was the most senior US official to meet Min Aung Hlaing since he took power, and the two almost certainly discussed other issues of shared interest.

Vance is also understood to have met Burmese officials in Tokyo in June, again in Tokyo this month, and representatives of groups opposed to military rule.

Still, signs of a change in US policy toward Myanmar date back to July last year, at the height of President Donald Trump’s tariff war.

That was when Min Aung Hlaing, along with other regional leaders, received a personal letter from the US president telling him that his country’s battered economy was about to face, in Myanmar’s case, 40% tariffs.

Other countries reacted with shock to the punitive duties imposed on their crucial trade with a nation they had once regarded as a friend and ally.

Much of Myanmar has been ravaged by a civil war that has continued since 2021

Min Aung Hlaing, however, was pleased.

He replied at once to express his “sincere appreciation for this encouraging invitation to continue participating in the extraordinary Economy of the United States, the Number One Market in the World”, echoing Trump’s exaggerated style and unusual capitalization.

“It is with great esteem that I wish to acknowledge Your Excellency’s strong leadership in guiding your country toward national prosperity with the spirit of a true patriot.”

This was not merely a dictator’s instinct that flattery might be the best route to Trump’s favor. Min Aung Hlaing’s coup, and the civil war it triggered, had made him an international outcast.

His regime was largely unrecognized. He was accused of being a war criminal, with cases filed against him at the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice. Apart from Russia and, more recently, China, he was shunned by other governments.

Yet here was the US president addressing him like any other president or prime minister, as “Your Excellency.” Trump’s letter made no reference to the terrible human cost of Min Aung Hlaing’s seizure of power; to a democracy crushed and leader Aung San Suu Kyi imprisoned.

That same month, the regime signed a $3m (£2.3m) contract with DCI, a long-established Washington lobbying firm that had previously been used by a former Burmese military regime in 2002 to try to improve its image.

Since then, the military government has also brought in Roger Stone, a controversial lobbyist and confidant of President Trump, at a cost of $50,000 a month.

Around the same time, Adam Castillo, a former US marine and Trump supporter who had just resigned as president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Yangon, was in Washington urging Vice President JD Vance’s team to re-engage.

Castillo argued that the US strategy of using sanctions to isolate the junta had not worked.

“Myanmar mattered to America not only as a morality play but as a strategic interest,” he wrote in his book Finding Our Voice: A Story of Leadership in Crisis and the American Spirit Abroad. He told the vice-president’s team that the US “could engage Myanmar without war or isolation, loosen China’s grip on critical minerals, and align peace with American interests”.

Castillo was pushing at an open door.

US dependence on rare earths from China had been exposed when China cut them off in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs in April. The administration then began focusing on finding alternative supplies. Myanmar has large rare earth reserves, which are currently being exploited solely for China’s benefit.

At almost the same time, the State Department issued new guidance to US embassies worldwide on how to talk about elections. It said that “messages should avoid opining on the fairness or integrity of an electoral process, its legitimacy, or the democratic values of the country in question”.

So when Myanmar held its heavily criticized general election in December and January, allowing Min Aung Hlaing to recast himself from coup leader into a nominally civilian president, the US did not, unlike most Western governments, denounce it as neither free nor fair.

For decades, the US has regularly passed judgment on other countries’ elections. Now it had nothing to say.

Washington’s move to lift sanctions on some of those targeted by the Biden administration appeared to further confirm the new direction of US-Myanmar policy.

“For years, the US approach to Myanmar has been defined by isolation, sanctions, and distance,” DCI wrote in a recent newsletter. “That era is over… thankfully, President Trump has the courage to try something different.”

The tone is clearly different, but the substance of US-Myanmar relations has not changed as much.

“In practice less has changed than the headlines suggest,” says Richard Horsey, Myanmar adviser for the International Crisis Group, noting that Min Aung Hlaing remains under sanctions. “What is new is the level of contact and the location. Senior US officials have now been to Nay Pyi Taw, which is exactly what Min Aung Hlaing wanted. What he wants next is sanctions relief, and that will be harder.”

Yet another Trump initiative last year may have had a far greater effect on Myanmar: the dismantling of USAID, which cut aid to opposition groups, dissident media and refugees by more than half.

There was also the decision, condemned by human rights groups, to revoke Temporary Protected Status for 4,000 Burmese who had sought refuge in the US. They are now living in fear of being returned, where many could be jailed, or worse.

As for Myanmar’s rare earths, few experts think they will ever be of much value to the US. Most are located in areas disputed by ethnic insurgent armies.

They are currently mined by Chinese companies with long experience operating in these lawless border regions, then taken across the border to China for processing. It is hard to see how the US could gain access to them.

It is also doubtful that the US will secure meaningful cooperation from the Myanmar government in tackling the scam industry.

There have been a few widely publicized crackdowns on some of the larger scam compounds, but the syndicates behind them have simply spread into smaller operations in more remote areas, and in any case most are run with the backing of militia groups allied to the Myanmar military.

“Talking to Nay Pyi Taw is not wrong in itself,” says Hunter Marston, Southeast Asia director at the Lowy Institute.

“The question is what Washington asks for and what it gives away. It should use the channel for the things that matter most: humanitarian access, an end to airstrikes on civilians. It should keep talking to the opposition and the ethnic armed groups, who hold much of the country. And on scams, the most effective thing the US can do is to co-ordinate with other governments in the region, including China, to go after the money.”

Perhaps the larger question is whether President Trump, distracted by domestic politics and the war on Iran, has the bandwidth to give Myanmar sustained attention, let alone enough to challenge China’s dominant influence.