Is Washington Ready to Do Business With Myanmar's Junta? A Top Official's Visit Signals a Shift
Has Washington's long-standing policy of isolating Myanmar's military regime now changed? The revelation that a top official in the Trump administration recently met the country's leader Min Aung Hlaing, and the removal of some business figures from the US sanctions list, suggests that it has.
Until now, the United States had had very little official contact with the regime following the 2021 coup, when Myanmar's military ousted the democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi. More recently, it had applied a series of targeted sanctions against those judged to be supporting the junta.
The meeting on 15 and 16 September was with US Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Michael Vance, and it took place in Myanmar's capital, Nay Pyi Taw. Its ostensible focus was to secure the release of Adam Castillo, a US citizen detained in June over a dispute with the local American Chamber of Commerce.
But Vance is the most senior US official to have met Min Aung Hlaing since he seized power, and they almost certainly discussed other matters of mutual interest. Vance is also known to have met Burmese officials in Tokyo in June, and again in Tokyo this month, and to have met representatives of the groups opposing military rule.
Signs of a shift, though, go back to July last year, at the height of President Donald Trump's tariff war. That was when Min Aung Hlaing, along with other leaders in the region, received a personal letter from the US president informing him that his country's shattered economy was about to be hit — in Myanmar's case — by 40 per cent tariffs. Instead of shock, Min Aung Hlaing replied immediately, expressing sincere appreciation for the invitation to keep participating in 'the extraordinary Economy of the United States, the Number One Market in the World,' mimicking Trump's hyperbolic phrasing.
The coup, and the civil war it ignited, had turned Min Aung Hlaing into an international pariah. His regime was largely unrecognised, he was accused of being a war criminal with cases lodged against him at the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, and apart from Russia and, more recently, China, he was shunned by other governments. Yet Trump's letter addressed him just like any other president or prime minister, with no mention of the human cost of his power seizure, of a democracy crushed or of Aung San Suu Kyi jailed.
That same month, the regime signed a 3 million dollar contract with DCI, a long-standing Washington lobbying firm that a previous Burmese military regime had used in 2002 to improve its image. Since then, the military government has also hired Roger Stone, a controversial lobbyist and confidant of President Trump, at a fee of 50,000 dollars a month.
At almost exactly the same time, Adam Castillo — a former US marine and Trump supporter who had just stepped down as president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Yangon — was in Washington trying to persuade Vice President JD Vance's team that it was time to re-engage. Castillo believed the US reliance on sanctions to isolate the junta had failed, writing that Myanmar mattered to America not only as a morality play but as a strategic interest: engagement could loosen China's grip on critical minerals and align peace with American interests.
Behind that calculation lie rare earths. The US dependence on rare earths from China had been exposed when China blocked them in retaliation against Trump's tariffs in April, and the administration began prioritising alternative sources. Myanmar happens to have large reserves of rare earths, which are currently being exploited solely for China's use.
At almost exactly the same time, the State Department issued new guidance to US embassies around the world: messages should avoid opining on the fairness or integrity of another country's electoral process, its legitimacy, or its democratic values. So when Myanmar held its much-criticised general election in December and January, allowing Min Aung Hlaing to turn himself from coup leader into a notionally civilian president, the US did not — unlike most Western governments — condemn it as neither free nor fair. Washington's decision to lift sanctions on some of those targeted by the Biden administration seemed only to confirm the new direction.
Analysts, however, say less has changed in practice than the headlines suggest. 'Min Aung Hlaing is still sanctioned,' says Richard Horsey, Myanmar adviser for the International Crisis Group. '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.'
Another Trump initiative has arguably had a much greater impact on Myanmar: the dismantling of USAID, which slashed aid to opposition groups, dissident media and refugees by more than half. There was also the decision, decried by human rights groups, to withdraw Temporary Protected Status from 4,000 Burmese who had sought sanctuary in the US, leaving them in fear of being sent back. And few experts believe Myanmar's rare earths will ever be of much use to the US: most lie in areas contested by ethnic insurgent armies and are extracted by Chinese companies that transport them across the border to China.
