Here is the result in plain text:
Democratic senators sent a letter to the Trump administration on Wednesday criticizing what they called the paltry U.S. aid response to the earthquake in Myanmar, where China and Russia have sent rescue and relief teams.
The six senators said in the letter that the United States appeared to be failing the first test of its ability to respond to a humanitarian crisis in the wake of the Trump administration’s drastic cuts to foreign aid and dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development, the main aid agency.
“We are deeply concerned that the administration’s response is failing to meet both our moral and strategic objectives — sending a signal to countries around the world that our adversaries are more reliable and trustworthy than the United States,” the senators wrote.
The senators sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, saying that the U.S. government should grant sanctions waivers to any earthquake relief going into Myanmar.
The United States did not send any specialist aid teams to Myanmar after the earthquake hit on Friday.
As of this past weekend, the United States had not even managed to get a three-person assessment team into the country.
The State Department spokesman said on Friday that crisis teams were on standby, but the severe cuts since late January have decimated the infrastructure for the U.S. government’s Disaster Assistance Response Teams.
Two agency employees who had expected to be posted this winter to Myanmar and Thailand as humanitarian advisers were told by senior officials weeks ago to stay in Washington because the positions had been cut.
The Trump administration has also cut contracts for transportation used to send firefighters and rescue workers in Virginia and Southern California to global disaster zones when requested by other countries.
The total US. government annual spending on foreign aid had been less than one percent of the federal budget.
The United States Embassy in Myanmar announced on Sunday that it would send up to $2 million in aid, much less than recent American administrations have sent for similar disasters.
The Senate letter cited the Times story from Sunday that revealed the shortcomings of the Trump administration’s response.
“Even as the administration has wittingly undercut our ability to efficiently save lives and promote U.S. interests, we call on the State Department and U.S.A.I.D. to rapidly assess what the United States can still do for people in Burma, including with resources already in the region,” the senators said, using the U.S. government’s preferred name for Myanmar.
They added that the Treasury Department should authorize “all transactions related to earthquake relief efforts in Burma that would otherwise be prohibited by U.S. sanctions.”
On Monday, Tammy Bruce, the State Department spokeswoman, said the U.S. government’s assessment team was “in the process of being present right there,” and that disaster experts in Washington, Manila and Bangkok were trying to help.
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