USAID cuts cause ‘more rights abuses’ in Myanmar

Donald Trump’s sweeping foreign aid cuts have emboldened Myanmar’s military rulers to commit even more human rights abuses, organisations working in the country have said.

- SHWETA SHARMA

The cuts are projected to deprive the conflict-ravaged nation of more than $1bn in aid by 2029, according to the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (Hart) and Fortify Rights.

This threatens to deepen a humanitarian crisis caused by a series of ethnic armed conflicts and worsened by the army’s overthrow of Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government in a 2021 coup.

Since ousting the democratically elected government, the junta led by General Min Aung Hlaing has waged civil war against a host of regional rebel groups across the country. The Independent released a documentary last December about the rise and fall of Nobel laureate Suu Kyi, who has remained under house arrest since the coup.

In a report published on Wednesday, Hart and Fortify Rights underscored the disastrous impact of the Trump administration’s order to freeze funding for USAID programmes on the first day of his second term in the White House.

The Trump administration slashed USAID funding, halting some $60bn in foreign aid and resulting in about 80 per cent of its projects being axed. This triggered the termination of over 5,800 grants, severely disrupting humanitarian and development efforts around the world.