Washington: Day after day, Chinese rescue teams dragged children and elderly people from cameras, as the camera thanked survivors around the world. Russian medical team showed up a erected field hospital to incur injuries.
It is worth noting that the consequences of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake in Myanmar’s poor Southeast Asian country are: unique skilled, well-equipped, rapid and rapid search and rescue teams and disaster response crews from the United States.
The Myanmar government said at least 15 Asian and Western government rescue teams have landed crew members on hundreds of workers, as well as initial commitments for financial aid to reach tens of millions of dollars, the death toll of 3,000 from the March 28 earthquake. The camera shows Vietnamese teams arrive and marching square shoulders behind the flag of their country to rescue.
AIDS officials said the U.S. government has previously worked with local partners to successfully provide decades of assistance, including after the deadly storm in 2008 and 2023, despite challenges raised by the Myanmar military and civil war.
The U.S. government’s rescue capabilities in experience, capabilities and heavy machinery enable people to live out of the ruins. But after the recent earthquake, in Myanmar, the United States is known for not having a well-known presence on the ground outside of the three-person assessment team sent in a few days after the earthquake.
“We are all concerned about the impact of President Donald Trump’s removal of the sixty-year-old American International Development Agency,” said Lia Lindsey, senior humanitarian policy adviser at Oxfam.
Now, Lindsay said: “We are seeing it in real time. We are seeing an increase in pain and an increase in death.”
For decades, the retreat of U.S. policy could fuel the absence of the U.S., the world’s largest economy, long-standing strategic interests and alliances by its position as the world’s top humanitarian donor. The Myanmar earthquake is as close to an unseen earthquake as it has recently been remembered in a major, accessible natural disaster.
Current and former senior private and government officials say the Myanmar disaster points to some results — for those in need in the local area, for those who stand in the world, the Trump administration retreats from decades of U.S. policy. This approach argues that Washington needs strong military power and a gentle force of strong aid and development programs to stop enemies, win and retain friends and guide activities.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio rejected a suggestion at a NATO gathering in Europe that the government would curb foreign influence by canceling thousands of aid and development contracts, including disaster-related aid and development contracts. He told reporters that those complaining were aid groups, and he accused of profiting from U.S. aid.
“We will do our best,” Rubio said Friday. “But we have other needs and we have to balance that with our not going away.”
He noted that “many other wealthy countries in the world. They should all be involved and do their part.”
The leading Senate Democrats wrote to Rubio this week urging him to expand U.S. disaster aid to Myanmar. In addition, Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, talked about watching the disaster aired, showing the work of the Chinese government team.
“Seeing my heart, not the USAID…the team leading the reaction, and there is a team from China that is celebrated for saving some people in the ruins,” Coons said.
The 21/2-month-old Trump administration through Elon Musk’s efficiency force has frozen U.S. Agency funding, terminated thousands of contracts and revoked several employees worldwide. It accuses of wasting and advancing the cause of liberalism. The Myanmar earthquake was the first major natural disaster since the start of work.
The Trump administration and some Republican lawmakers have said they will reassemble reduced aid and development plans under the State Department, which fits their narrow interpretation of our strategic and economic benefits.
A few days after the Myanmar earthquake, the United States announced its first help: It was an assessment team of three non-expert consultants sent from a region of the United States Agency for International Development, Bangkok, Thailand. Coincidentally, like hundreds of other USAID employees around the world, the three received a notice of layoffs from the Trump administration on March 28 after the earthquake, confirmed by current and former U.S. Agency for International Development officials.
The government also pledged $2 million in aid and announced another $7 million on Friday. However, there is more effect.
The $9 million total is about $2 billion in payments owed by the Trump administration by nonprofit humanitarian groups, other contractors, as well as the Trump administration, as well as non-government foreign partners, AIDS officials said. The Trump administration abruptly closed USDA and state foreign aid payments (including work already done) on the inauguration day of January 20.
Coupled with a sudden termination of aid contracts and a freeze of USDA and state aid and development payments, the U.S. debt has forced greater aid operations and businesses to expand their services to those in need and cut employees. Some smaller organizations were closed down. That was before the Myanmar earthquake.
According to a court order, the government is slowly making good good for these repaid payments.
Meanwhile, nonprofits have had to use reserves of bills they are usually used for sudden unplanned disasters, such as the Myanmar earthquake, to pay for bills the U.S. should have paid, Lefm official Lindsey said.
When asked about the burden of NGOs (another name of the aid group) said that the outstanding bills from the Agency for International Development were being taken on for their work, the U.S. State Department said in an email: “The U.S. government cannot comment on how NGOs manage their financing.”
Sarah Charles said that in general, during the initial response phase to disasters such as the Myanmar earthquake, the United States itself will provide $10 million to $20 million and conduct disaster response and overall humanitarian affairs at the Biden Administration’s United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
“We have a long history in Myanmar, and this is the environment where the U.S. government has been operating for the past few decades,” Charles added.
Typically, the United States will also put 20 to 25 professional disaster workers on site within 24 hours, Charles said. If U.S. International Development flies in city rescue teams in California and Virginia, that number will jump to 200 or more. Charles said they will be deployed as independent units, with dog handlers and the ability to provide clean water to the team.
The Trump administration has signed contracts for rescue teams in California and Virginia under pressure from lawmakers. However, their shipping contracts are considered to be contracts in thousands of U.S. Agency for International Development contracts cancelled by the government. Charles said the United States has no quick way to move search and rescue workers when disasters occur.
The UK has pledged $13 million in aid and said it will match up to $5 million in private donations, with China and others pledging financial assistance. According to Myanmar officials, there are at least dozens or hundreds of rescue workers or aid workers, including Russia, China, India and the United Arab Emirates.
China has borders and close ties with Myanmar. Chinese rescuers achieved their first success Sunday, less than 48 hours after the earthquake, when they joined hands with locals to pull an elderly man from a severely damaged hospital in the capital Naypyitaw.
By Wednesday, Chinese rescuers had evacuated nine survivors, including pregnant women and a child. In Mandalay, Chinese rescuers rescued a 52-year-old man who was trapped for nearly 125 hours.
