Is Donald Trump ready to do business with Myanmar?

Has Washington's long-standing policy of isolating the military regime in Myanmar now changed?

The revelation that a top official in the Trump administration met its leader Min Aung Hlaing last month, and the removal of some business figures from the US sanctions list, suggests that it has.

Until now, the US had had very little official contact with the regime following the 2021 coup, when Myanmar's military ousted democratically-elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi. More recently, it had applied a series of targeted sanctions against those judged to be supporting the junta.

The meeting on 15 and 16 September was with US Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Michael Vance, and it took place in Myanmar's capital Nay Pyi Taw. Its ostensible focus was to secure the release of Adam Castillo, a US citizen who had been detained in June over a dispute with the local American Chamber of Commerce.

But Vance was the most senior US official to meet Min Aung Hlaing since he seized power, and they almost certainly discussed other matters of mutual interest.

Vance is also known to have met Burmese officials in Tokyo in June, again in Tokyo this month, and to have met representatives of the groups opposing military rule.

Signs of a shift in US policy towards Myanmar, though, go back to July last year, at the height of President Donald Trump's tariff war.

That was when Min Aung Hlaing, along with other leaders in the region, received a personal letter from the US president informing him that his country's shattered economy was about to be hit by, in Myanmar's case, 40% tariffs.

Other countries reeled in shock at the punitive levies imposed on their vital trade with a country they had once seen as a friend and ally.

But Min Aung Hlaing was delighted.

He replied immediately to express his "sincere appreciation for this encouraging invitation to continue participating in the extraordinary Economy of the United States, the Number One Market in the World", mimicking Trump's hyperbolic phrasing and eccentric capitalisation.

"It is with great esteem that I wish to acknowledge Your Excellency's strong leadership in guiding your country toward national prosperity with the spirit of a true patriot."

This was not just a dictator's hunch that flattery might be the best way to win favours from Trump. Min Aung Hlaing's coup, and the civil war it ignited, had turned him into an international pariah.

His regime was largely unrecognised. He was accused of being a war criminal, with cases lodged against him at the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice. Aside from Russia and, more recently, China, he was shunned by other governments.

Yet here was the US president addressing him just like any other president or prime minister, as "Your Excellency. There was no mention in Trump's letter of the appalling human cost of Min Aung Hlaing's power seizure; of a democracy crushed and leader Aung San Suu Kyi jailed.

That same month the regime signed a $3m (£2.3m) contract with DCI, a long-standing Washington lobbying firm which had been used by a previous Burmese military regime in 2002 to try to improve its image.

Since then the military government has also hired Roger Stone, a controversial lobbyist and confidant of President Trump, at a fee of $50,000 a month.

Also around the same time Adam Castillo, a former US marine and Trump supporter who had just stepped down as president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Yangon, was in Washington trying to persuade Vice President JD Vance's team that it was time to re-engage.

Castillo believed that the US reliance on sanctions to isolate the junta had failed.

"Myanmar mattered to America not only as a morality play but as a strategic interest," he wrote in his book Finding Our Voice: A Story of Leadership in Crisis and the American Spirit Abroad. He discussed with the vice-president's team how the US "could engage Myanmar without war or isolation, loosen China's grip on critical minerals, and align peace with American interests".

Castillo was pushing at an open door.

The US dependence on rare earths from China had been exposed when China blocked them in retaliation against Trump's tariffs in April. The administration began prioritising finding alternative sources. Myanmar happens to have large reserves of rare earths which are currently being exploited solely for China's use.

At almost exactly the same time, the state department issued new guidance to US embassies around the world on what to say about elections. From now on, it said, "messages should avoid opining on the fairness or integrity of an electoral process, its legitimacy, or the democratic values of the country in question".

So, when Myanmar held its much-criticised general election in December and January, allowing Min Aung Hlaing to turn himself from coup leader into a notionally civilian president, the US did not, like most Western governments, condemn it as neither free nor fair.

For decades the US has consistently pronounced judgement on other countries' elections. Now the US had nothing to say.

Washington's decision to lift sanctions on some of those targeted by the Biden administration seemed only to confirm the new direction of US-Myanmar policy.

"For years, the US approach to Myanmar has been defined by isolation, sanctions, and distance," wrote the lobbyists DCI in a recent newsletter. "That era is over… thankfully, President Trump has the courage to try something different."

The tone is certainly different, but not so much the substance of US-Myanmar relations.

"In practice less has changed than the headlines suggest," says Richard Horsey, Myanmar adviser for the International Crisis Group, adding that Min Aung Hlaing is still sanctioned. "What is new is the level of contact and the location. Senior US officials have now been to Nay Pyi Taw, which is exactly what Min Aung Hlaing wanted. What he wants next is sanctions relief, and that will be harder."

It was another Trump initiative last year, though, which has arguably had a much greater impact on Myanmar: the dismantling of USAID, which slashed aid to opposition groups, dissident media and refugees by more than half.

There was also the decision, decried by human rights groups, to withdraw Temporary Protected Status from 4,000 Burmese who had sought sanctuary in the US. This has left them living in fear of being sent back, where many face being jailed, or worse.

As for the rare earths in Myanmar, few experts believe they will ever be of much use to the US. Most lie in areas contested by ethnic insurgent armies.

They are currently extracted by Chinese companies with long experience of operating in these lawless borderlands, and transported over the border to China for processing. It is difficult to see how the US could get access to them.

It is also doubtful that the US will get meaningful co-operation from the Myanmar government in combating the scam industry.

There have been a few highly-publicised actions against some of the larger scam compounds, but the syndicates running them have simply dispersed to smaller operations in more remote areas, and in any case most are run with the support of militia groups allied to the Myanmar military.

"Talking to Nay Pyi Taw is not wrong in itself," says Horsey.

"The question is what Washington asks for and what it gives away. It should use the channel for the things that matter most: humanitarian access, an end to airstrikes on civilians. It should keep talking to the opposition and the ethnic armed groups, who hold much of the country. And on scams, the most effective thing the US can do is to co-ordinate with other governments in the region, including China, to go after the money."

Perhaps the bigger question, though, is whether President Trump, distracted by domestic politics and the war on Iran, has the capacity to give any sustained attention to Myanmar, let alone enough to challenge the dominant influence of China.