“We’re not the government of the world,” Marco Rubio told a BBC reporter at NATO Headquarters in Brussels on April 4.
The U.S. Secretary of State defended a modest $2 million contribution for Myanmar, recovering from a 7.7 magnitude earthquake that killed more than 3,500 people. The State Department later softened its stance on humanitarian assistance and pledged an additional $7 million for quake-affected areas.
In past years, the U.S. was a leading donor of aid to Myanmar, working with non-governmental organizations to provide food, water, and emergency shelter to people in conflict or disaster zones. In 2024, USAID (the United States Agency for International Development) contributed $141 million to humanitarian causes, of which $3 million went to flood-hit communities in the aftermath of Typhoon Yagi.
The dismantling of USAID by the Trump administration in January, however, marked the end of an era of large-scale spending on foreign aid.
In his remarks to the press, Rubio said the U.S. would “do our part” for earthquake victims but that other countries “should pitch in.” The Secretary of State indicated that non-urgent food, health, or education projects run by international organizations “flooded with U.S. taxpayer money” would be eliminated. “We’re not going to fund these global NGOs,” he declared.
Rubio hinted that the State Department was open to supporting “appropriate” local NGOs but pointed out that Myanmar was “not the easiest place to work” since the government was run by a “military junta that doesn’t like us. . . doesn’t allow us to operate.”
An international team dispatched by the State Department, however, found that Washington, D.C. (not Naypyidaw) had pulled the plug on relief efforts. Current and former USAID officials confirmed that three staff members received job termination emails days after arriving in “the rubble-strewn” city of Mandalay. One aid worker had flown in from Washington; the other staffers were based in Bangkok and Manila.
Myanmar’s convoluted relationship with foreign aid predated the earthquake.
USAID spent significant amounts on refugees displaced from Myanmar’s border states. The aid recipients were spread out across multiple countries. Bangladesh has received nearly $2 billion since August 2017 for resettling Rohingya refugees fleeing violence in Rakhine State. In Thailand, 15 percent of the USAID budget in 2023 was earmarked for nutritional assistance to the Burmese community. Students from conflict-prone Chin State and (Karenni) Kayah State received scholarships to pursue higher education at universities in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Cambodia.
The USAID scholarships inadvertently became a lightning rod in America’s culture wars.
President Donald Trump criticized the program on multiple occasions. At a bill signing ceremony in January, Trump said his administration “blocked $45 million for diversity scholarships in Burma. Forty-five. That’s a lot of money for diversity scholarships in Burma.”
In an address to a joint session of the United States Congress on March 4, the President cited the scholarship program as an example of “appalling waste.”
The Diversity and Inclusion Scholarship Program (DISP), awarded in 2023, was set up to provide higher education opportunities to “ethnic and religious minorities, women, LGBTQI+ persons, persons with disabilities, and displaced persons.”
David Thang Moe, a lecturer in Southeast Asian Studies at Yale University, told the evangelical publication Christianity Today that DISP scholarships “filled a vacuum in Myanmar’s education space,” helping minority students “gain a critical perspective.”
Although the word “diversity” in DISP was later replaced with “development,” an official in Myanmar’s exiled National Unity Government told Radio Free Asia that the scholarship became a high-profile target “due to its name.” About 400 students enrolled in degree programs lost their funding when the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency canceled the scholarships on January 29.
“I have to say it’s quite a blow,” confessed a DISP scholar in Thailand. “The uncertainty for the current students is where they’ll get their tuition for the next semester,” said Hlwan Paing Thiha, a student working towards a master’s degree in public policy.
Payap University in Chiang Mai is reportedly considering a tuition waiver for DISP recipients. The private university hosts nine students from Myanmar’s Mon State and offers a Ph.D. program in peacebuilding.