USAID has had a very limited presence in Myanmar for years after the junta took control and Biden sanctioned the junta. Most other nations across ASEAN (such a

USAID has had a very limited presence in Myanmar for years after the junta took control and Biden sanctioned the junta. Most other nations across ASEAN (such as Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and even Thailand) also began reducing USAID's presence because aid was increasingly being tied with democratization [0]. Why deal with aid with strings attached when China, Japan, India, Russia, and South Korea provide similar aid with no democratization requirements. I've written in depth about this with regards to Cambodia, but the same dynamics played out in Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam as well [1], though Thailand and Vietnam were important enough that "consensus building" took lower priority. [0] - https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2023/12/examining-us-relations-with-authoritarian-countries?lang=en https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2023/12/examining-us-... [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43339290 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43339290