Updated April 02, 2025 at 15:28 PM ET
Current and former USAID staff are raising questions about the immediacy and impact of the U.S. response to the earthquake that rocked Myanmar and surrounding countries on Friday, particularly after massive budget cuts and the termination of nearly all staff at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The magnitude 7.7 quake hit at 12:50 p.m. local time, killing more than 2,000 people and leaving millions without shelter.
"USAID has maintained a team of disaster experts with the capacity to respond if disaster strikes," Tammy Bruce, a spokesperson for the State Department, said at a press briefing on the day of the disaster.
"The United States is evaluating the need for assistance based on requests and dynamic reporting," she said.
Sarah Charles, assistant to the administrator of USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance under the Biden administration, spoke to NPR on Sunday, sharing her perspective: "The capacity of the U.S. government to provide that kind of assistance right now is severely diminished, and we haven't seen any of it so far."
The U.S. response
At another press conference on Monday, Bruce detailed U.S. plans for assistance — including up to $2 million in funding for organizations in Myanmar. Typically, the U.S. government partners with local businesses, clinics and local and international humanitarian organizations to deliver foreign assistance after a crisis.
"I would reject the premise that the sign of success is that we are physically there," Bruce told journalists on Monday.
"The fact that we've got partners that we work with, that our goals can be achieved through the work that we do with others around the world, is something," Bruce added.
She further noted that "a USAID team of humanitarian experts based in the region are traveling to Burma [a former name for Myanmar] now to identify the people's most pressing needs, including emergency shelter, food, medical needs and access to water." The team would consist of three individuals, she said.
By comparison, 225 USAID workers from around the world traveled to Turkey to respond to the earthquake there two years ago.
What's different in 2025
"This is disastrous," said Jim Kunder, former deputy administrator of USAID who served under three presidential administrations. Dismantling USAID is "inconceivably chaotic and obviously disruptive to the ability to respond when an earthquake like this hits," Kunder told NPR.
And then there's the issue of funding for the organizations that the U.S. government would typically work with, doing everything from distributing supplies to checking the buildings that are still standing to make sure they're safe. USAID funding for many of these local businesses, humanitarian groups and clinics was terminated during the Trump administration's dismantling of the agency, so they've had to lay off staff and scale down or halt their projects.
In fact, many of the organizations still haven't received previously approved payments, often numbering in the hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars, from USAID for existing work due to the suspension of aid when Trump took office.
And even aid groups whose contracts are still active may not be able to assist in the earthquake relief efforts. Independent search-and-rescue groups based in Fairfax, Va., and Los Angeles saw their contracts canceled, then reinstated, in the early days of this administration — but they do not have USAID funding to transport crew members and their specialized gear to the scene of the earthquake.
Search-and-rescue groups also need to be accompanied by experienced USAID staff who know the region well, but most of these employees have been terminated.
Working quickly after a disaster like this is key to saving lives, Charles and Kunder said. It's important to conduct search and rescue as soon as possible amid the rubble and to make sure the buildings that are still standing are safe for people to return to.
Earthquakes can also bring their own subsequent crises, including outbreaks of infectious diseases.
"You can expect to see diseases that thrive in areas of poor sanitation — diseases like cholera — and malaria when people are sleeping outside without protection," Charles said.
So far, she said, humanitarian teams from India, China, Vietnam, Russia and elsewhere have arrived in the region — but none from the U.S.
Asked about the impact of the U.S. absence in an interview with NPR this week, Elena Vuolo, World Health Organization deputy head in Myanmar, agreed that the gap was being filled by "European donors, Asian donors. Some countries have already come forward, like India, China, Russia. The U.N. system through OCHA [the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs] has been able, for example, to mobilize $5 million for protection, education, cash-based assistance. Unfortunately, Myanmar is also one of the least funded emergencies in the world."
"It is in U.S. strategic interest to respond," Kunder said, "both because we care about human beings trapped in rubble, and because it's in our geostrategic interest."
Perhaps USAID's biggest contribution is figuring out what is needed — supplies and assistance — and finding it, he said. That might mean working with local businesses to buy food and supplies, or finding doctors and nurses in the region who can help respond. After a disaster, donations of diapers and blankets may flood into a region, when really what's needed is, for instance, generators and portable stoves.
In the past, the U.S. took the lead on organizing the response to crises with other countries, Charles said.
That way, "it's not just a melee of everyone trying to respond at once, but there's a coordinated structure" to prioritize what needs to be done, when, and where.
"All of those systems have really been degraded over the last couple of months without U.S. leadership," Charles said, which makes it harder for other countries' foreign aid offices to work effectively on the ground.
"There's so many of the buttons that you would normally press that have been disrupted by all this — the cancellation of projects, the furloughing of all the staff — that it's almost impossible to put together a serious, competent, organized response," Kunder said.
"I would reject the notion that this is obviously a result of the USAID cuts," Bruce said on Monday. With the Trump administration reforms, she added, "certain things won't necessarily look the same, but the success in the work and our impact will still be there."
Melody Schreiber is a journalist and editor of What We Didn't Expect: Personal Stories About Premature Birth.
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