This year brings a change of US administration with the return of Donald Trump, and also marks the 78th anniversary of US-Myanmar diplomatic relations.
But how the controversial president’s return to the White House will affect the longstanding relations between the two countries is an open question. The US was for decades a supporter of the Myanmar democracy movement, vocally championing it from the late 1980s onwards. For that reason, Myanmar people have long viewed the US as their close friend.
However, the US approach towards Myanmar under the Biden administration caused dismay, especially its response to Myanmar’s anti-military regime movement following the 2021 coup. Four years of US passivity, during which Washington allowed the ineffective Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to take the lead on Myanmar policy, have left most Myanmar people convinced that their old friend the US is not prepared to offer anything meaningful in response to the crisis.
Historically, the relationship between the two countries has generally been warm and supportive despite the occasional hiccup.
When Myanmar (then Burma) declared independence on Jan. 4, 1948, US President Harry S. Truman sent a congratulatory message to his counterpart Sao Shwe Thaike.
Among the high-profile visits that followed, then Vice President Richard Nixon rang the wishing bell at Yangon’s Shwedagon Pagoda in 1953. (He returned to the pagoda in 1985.)
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles traveled to Myanmar in 1955 and the country’s Prime Minister U Nu visited Washington in the same year to meet with President Dwight Eisenhower.
In 1966, with the Vietnam War dominating US concerns in Southeast Asia, US President Lyndon B. Johnson invited Myanmar military dictator Ne Win to the White House as a gesture of support for his efforts to maintain Myanmar’s non-alignment and neutrality in the war.
After 1988, during the days of Myanmar’s former military regime, US-Myanmar relations were often strained nearly to the breaking point, with Washington backing the pro-democracy ’88 Uprising of that year.
Following the uprising, according to historian Kenton Clymer, the country became “the center of popular American attention to Southeast Asia.” As the late Myanmar scholar David I. Steinberg pointed out, the name of Myanmar pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was mentioned in the Congressional Record 1,598 times from 1989 to January 2010. He wrote: “No living foreigner has shaped contemporary US policy toward a single country more than Aung San Suu Kyi.”
When Myanmar began a period of opening up in 2012, US President Barack Obama made an historic trip to the country—the first by a US president—and his administration supported the launch of the country’s ill-fated democratic transition in 2015.
Following the Myanmar military coup in 2021, the US downgraded diplomatic relations.
As president, Trump is not without experience in dealing with Myanmar. During his first term, then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited the country in 2017, meeting with its elected leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other officials to address human rights abuses, mainly against Rohingya by the country’s military. The visit earned praise for Tillerson’s recognition of Myanmar’s complex political situation and for his balanced and constructive handling of the issue.
In 2019, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Myanmar military chief Min Aung Hlaing and his associates for alleged human rights abuses against the Rohingya and other minorities. The US Treasury said the sanctions were aimed at supporting a transition toward democracy in Myanmar.
Today’s Myanmar is a world apart from the one that Trump knew in his first term. The democratically elected Myanmar government with which he engaged has been ousted by the military leader he sanctioned. Min Aung Hlaing has so far killed thousands of his own people, and nearly the whole population is fighting against him to restore democracy. At the same time, making the most of the country’s instability, China is exerting political, military and economic influence in an effort to further its strategic interests in Myanmar and the region.
As Trump has vowed to push back against a rising China, the Southeast Asian region is likely to see the growing power rivalry between the US and China play out. Sandwiched between India, one of Trump’s major allies, and China, which he sees as a threat, no one knows how Myanmar will be affected.
During the Biden administration, Myanmar saw no significant support for its democracy struggle from Washington. And given Trump’s US-centered MAGA mantra and his expected centering of foreign policy on the advancement of US interests, Myanmar people are less than hopeful that the change in administration will bring any breakthroughs in US policy toward their country. Gone are the days when US diplomats proudly declared their commitment to supporting democracy and peace in Myanmar. They are beginning to seem a remote memory as the countries prepare to mark 78 years of relations.
