US Sanctions on Myanmar Need More Work, House Panels Hear
The U.S. has imposed plenty of sanctions on bad actors in Myanmar in recent years but should do more to enforce those measures and coordinate them with its allies, a Southeast Asia expert told lawmakers Nov. 19.
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“There’s been a strong imposition of sanctions in an incremental manner, but the enforcement has not been nearly as strong as it could be,” Stimson Center senior fellow Steve Ross testified at a joint hearing of two House Foreign Affairs subcommittees. “Certainly, I think there is some additional benefit from continuing to look at actors that are benefiting from the drug trade, from scam centers [and] that are supplying weapons to the military, … but there’s also a lot on table that is ripe for further enforcement and coordination” with like-minded countries.
Kelley Currie, a former State Department official who's now a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Indo-Pacific Security Initiative, testified that she favors placing “full sanctions” on the Myanma Economic Bank, which she said helps Myanmar's military junta buy weapons from China and Russia. A bill that the House Financial Services Committee approved in July aims to strengthen sanctions against the bank, among others (see 2507240016).
Currie also called for greater use of sanctions to counter the United Wa State Army, a major drug producer in Myanmar. She criticized the recent removal of sanctions on "one of the regime's biggest arms dealers," which she said occurred "for no apparent reason."
In addition, Currie urged the U.S. and its allies to consider using interest earned on frozen foreign exchange funds to pay for humanitarian aid for the civil war-torn country. Such an approach would be similar to what has been done with frozen Russian assets to benefit Ukraine (see 2406140056).
Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., urged Ross and Currie to compile their recommendations into a list he can share with the Trump administration as a request. “I imagine you’ll have a lot of people in this committee on both sides of the aisle that are interested in being a part of that,” Perry told them.