As Trump guts foreign aid, China and others lead Myanmar earthquake response

BANGKOK — Chinese rescuers have freed six people from the rubble of an earthquake in Myanmar, including a child and a pregnant woman, Chinese state media reported Monday, placing Beijing at the forefront of an international rescue effort from which the United States has been largely absent.

Rescue teams from India, Malaysia, Russia, Thailand and other countries have already arrived in Myanmar, where the military-led government says the death toll from a 7.7-magnitude earthquake on Friday has surpassed 1,700, a figure that is expected to rise.

But a U.S. team has yet to appear at the scene of the quake in the Southeast Asian nation, which occurred the same day the State Department informed thousands of employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which administers civilian foreign aid, that nearly all of their roles were being eliminated.

Critics have warned that President Donald Trump’s cuts to U.S. foreign aid, which had previously accounted for less than 1% of the annual federal budget, could create an opening for authoritarian governments such as China and Russia that are trying to increase their global influence.

The U.S. Embassy in Myanmar, one of the world’s poorest countries, said Sunday in a post on X that the U.S. would provide up to $2 million in aid through Myanmar-based humanitarian assistance organizations.

The embassy also said that a USAID emergency response team was “deploying to Myanmar to identify the people’s most pressing needs, including emergency shelter, food, medical needs, and access to water.”

It was not immediately clear when the U.S. team would arrive in Myanmar, even as the country on Monday marked the end of the crucial 72 hours since the quake after which the survival rate of people trapped in the rubble sharply decreases.

The State Department said last week that cuts to foreign aid had not affected the U.S. government’s ability to respond to the earthquake.

But the U.S. absence is being felt on the ground in Myanmar, a country of 54 million people that in addition to the earthquake has been embroiled in a civil war for four years.

“We’ve seen a broad cut in humanitarian aid, that’s undeniable,” Trevor Clark, UNICEF’s regional chief of emergency, told NBC News in Bangkok on Monday. “What we’re focused on right now is just the immediate stuff. We’ve been able to mobilize some internal resources, and we’re confident that other sort of partners will step up.”

China has announced $14 million in assistance for Myanmar, including 1,200 tents, 8,000 blankets and 40,000 first aid kits. A team of 118 Chinese rescuers arrived in the country on Sunday along with six rescue dogs and two vehicles, according to Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency, in addition to 82 who arrived on Saturday.

Video from state-run broadcaster CCTV showed two Chinese rescuers pulling a 5-year-old girl from the rubble of a collapsed apartment building early Monday in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, which was near the epicenter of the quake.

The girl was carried down in the claw of an excavator, while a pregnant woman rescued from the same building was carried out on a gurney hooked to a zipline, video from Xinhua showed.

Russia, meanwhile, has sent 20 rescuers, including dog handlers and drone operators, according to Russian state news agency TASS, as well as three planes including an airmobile hospital.

The international response to the earthquake is complicated by the civil war, with the delivery of aid hampered by “damaged roads, collapsed bridges, unstable communications, and the complexities related to civil conflict,” the World Health Organization said Sunday.

Myanmar’s military government, which seized power in a 2021 coup, tightly controls access to the country and has continued bombing rebel forces in the days since the quake even as the country is rattled by aftershocks. But it has also sought international help, inviting “any country” to provide assistance.

Thailand has sent a team to neighboring Myanmar even as it deals with its own casualties from the quake, which sent high-rises swaying in the Thai capital, Bangkok, hundreds of miles from the epicenter.

Rescue efforts in Bangkok are centered on a 33-story building under construction that collapsed in the quake, trapping scores of workers.

On Monday, rescuers recovered a 12th body from the wreckage of the building, out of the 19 people killed across the city. Nine people have been found alive while more than 70 others are still missing at the site of the building, where U.S. service members are working alongside the Thai military and other first responders.

Even as rescue efforts continued for a fourth day, officials did not give up hope of finding more survivors. On Monday, Bangkok Deputy Governor Tavida Kamolvej said life-detection equipment had found a weak vital sign under the rubble, prompting Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra to leave the scene so rescuers could hear better.

“Every second counts, it really counts,” Tavida said. 

Nat Sumon, Ed Flanagan and Janis Mackey Frayer reported from Bangkok, Mithil Aggarwal and Yixuan Tan reported from Hong Kong.