The democratic senators sent a letter to the Trump administration on Wednesday by criticizing what they called the miserable response of US aid to the earthquake in Myanmar, where China and Russia sent rescue and rescue teams.
The six senators declared in the letter that the United States seemed to fail the first test of his ability to respond to a humanitarian crisis following the drastic cuts of the Trump administration to foreign aid and the dismantling of the United States Agency for international development, the main aid agency.
“We are deeply concerned that the administration’s response cannot achieve both our moral and strategic goals, sending a signal to countries around the world that our opponents are more reliable and reliable of the United States,” the senators wrote.
The New York Times obtained a copy of the letter, organized by the offices of the senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a member of the banking committee ranking, and to Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, which is part of the Foreign Relationship Committee. The other senators who signed were Virginia Tim Kaine, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Jeff Merkley from Oregon. The senators sent him to the Secretary of State Marco Rubio and to the Treasury Secretary Scott Beesent.
Mr. Rubio and a political person in charge at the State Department, Pete Morocco, supervised the cut of foreign aid and the Beescent agency supervises financial penalties on Myanmar. The senators have declared in the letter that the United States government should grant sanctions to exemption from any relief from the earthquake in Myanmar.
The United States did not send teams of aid specialized in Myanmar after Friday earthquake. More than 2,700 people died like buildings there and in nearby Thailand they collapsed, according to the authoritarian military leaders of Myanmar. The junta asked for help from other nations. China, Russia and India have sent teams and supplies, as well as Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam.
Starting last weekend, the United States had not even been able to be part of an evaluation team of three people in the country, according to reports from the New York Times on Sunday.
On Friday, the spokesman for the State Department said that the crisis teams were waiting, but the serious cuts since the end of January have decimated the infrastructure for the response teams to the catastrophes of the United States government. Many contractors of the contractors for those teams were fired in the USAID cuts and the offices of the Agency in Washington who would have helped with transport and payment logistics have been hindered.
Two employees of the agencies who expected to have been sent this winter in Myanmar and Thailand, since the humanitarian councilors told the high officials weeks ago to stay in Washington because the positions had been cut. On Friday, while those two employees and other colleagues were coordinating the responses to the earthquake, they received and -mail at the agency level telling them that they would be fired. The and -mail told everyone to return home that day.
The Trump administration has also cut the contracts for transport used to send firefighters and rescuers to Virginia and southern California to the global disaster areas when requested by other countries.
The total of the United States. The annual expenditure of the government for foreign aid had been lower than one percent of the federal budget.
The United States Embassy in Myanmar announced on Sunday that he would send up to $ 2 million in aid, much less than recent American administrations sent similar disasters.
The letter of the Senate mentioned the history of the Times on Sunday which revealed the deficiencies of the response of the Trump administration.
“Even if the administration has in a witty way our ability to save lives efficiently and promote US interests, we invite the State Department and Usaid to quickly evaluate what the United States can still do for people in Burma, even with resources already in the region,” said senators, using the favorite name of the United States government for Myanmar.
They added that the Treasury Department should authorize “all transactions relating to the rescue efforts of the earthquake in Burma which would otherwise be prohibited by US sanctions”.
On Monday, Tammy Bruce, spokesman for the State Department, said that the United States government evaluation team was “about to be present there” and that the catastrophes experts in Washington, Manila and Bangkok were trying to help.