For years, Myanmar’s military rulers have been treated as international outcasts, accused of atrocities, condemned for crushing democracy and blamed for plunging their country into a devastating civil war.
Now Donald Trump’s administration appears willing to entertain the possibility that the generals might be useful business partners after all.
And all because Myanmar has something Washington desperately wants: rare earth minerals. Geographically it also occupies a strategically valuable position between China, India and Southeast Asia. In Trump’s transactional world, those considerations may carry considerably more weight than the suffering of Myanmar’s population ever could.
But there is another uncomfortable truth to the story, one that Western governments and much of the international media have spent years struggling to confront or outright ignoring.
Myanmar’s supposedly glorious democratic alternative, Aung San Suu Kyi, has a record on ethnic minorities that warrants none of the reverence once showered upon her.
The ruling generals are brutal. That much is beyond serious dispute. Yet the idea that Myanmar’s problems began with the military coup of 2021, when Suu Kyi was forcibly removed from office, is a convenient Western distortion of a far longer and uglier history.
The country was deeply divided before the coup was even considered. Ethnic minorities were persecuted, and some of the most notorious crimes against the Rohingya took place while the Nobel Peace Prize winner was the country’s de facto civilian leader - another issue beyond serious dispute.
Washington’s apparent change of direction therefore raises two questions. Is Trump preparing to do business with a military regime accused of appalling abuses? And why has the West been so reluctant to apply a similar or identical level of unforgiving scrutiny to its former democratic heroine?
From international pariah to potential business partner
The most striking development came in September, when Michael Vance, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research, travelled to Myanmar’s capital, Nay Pyi Taw.
According to Reuters, which first reported the visit, Vance met Min Aung Hlaing on September 15 and 16, in what has been described as the highest-level contact between Washington and the military leader since the 2021 coup.
The stated purpose concerned Adam Castillo, an American detained following a dispute involving the local American Chamber of Commerce. But a visit at that level inevitably carries diplomatic significance far beyond the detention of any given individual.
It was also reported that Vance had already been in contact with Myanmar officials in Tokyo - home to a significant Burmese population. He had also spoken to representatives of organisations opposing military rule.
This does not establish that Washington has yet recognised the regime or abandoned its sanctions policy. It does, however, indicate that the administration is prepared to at least engage with a leader previous US governments largely sought to isolate.
For Min Aung Hlaing, even the optics are valuable. An American official of such rank visiting his capital and holding talks with him offers precisely the kind of international standing he has struggled to obtain in recent years.
The military leader has also been travelling around Southeast Asia. His October visit to Malaysia, where he met Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, illustrates how regional governments are finding reasons to deal with Myanmar’s leadership despite the unresolved civil war and global opposition.
Trump’s tariff threat an unexpected invitation
One of the more interesting episodes came out of a US tariff demand.
In July 2025, Trump informed Myanmar’s leader that goods from the country faced a proposed 40% tariff. For an economy already devastated by conflict, this was hardly welcome economic news.
Yet Min Aung Hlaing, surprising many, responded with enthusiasm. His reply expressed “sincere appreciation for this encouraging invitation to continue participating in the extraordinary Economy of the United States, the Number One Market in the World”.
He went on to praise Trump personally, saying “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.” Regional leaders took note.
It was an extraordinary performance in diplomatic flattery, particularly from a leader facing crushing levels of international condemnation. The significance was not the tariff itself of course. It was that the American president had addressed Myanmar’s military ruler as a normal counterpart.
And for a man desperate to escape diplomatic quarantine, that was a small but potentially important victory.
Myanmar’s rulers subsequently turned to professional Washington influence brokers. According to filings under the US Foreign Agents Registration Act, the regime signed a $3mn agreement with lobbying firm DCI, while Roger Stone, a longtime Trump associate, was retained through DCI for the not-insignificant fee of $50,000 a month.
There is nothing mysterious about the objective and in many ways Myanmar is showing its hand to the world. The military wants access. It wants legitimacy and it wants relief from economic pressure. Myanmar is now paying people with Washington connections to help pursue those goals.
The more difficult and unknown question is what the United States expects in return.
Rare earths: the minerals behind the smiles
China dominates the world's rare earth supply chains on which many advanced industries depend but in the past year or so, Trump’s trade confrontation with Beijing has exposed the risks of that dependence, all the time making alternative supplies an increasingly attractive strategic objective.
Myanmar, on China's southwestern border, possesses substantial rare earth resources of its own. On paper at least, that makes the country an interesting prospect for Washington. In practice though, the situation is considerably less promising.
Much of the mining takes place in territories currently disputed or controlled by ethnic armed groups, rather than in areas where the military government can simply grant an American company secure access.
Adding to America's concerns, Chinese operators already have established extraction networks, and the minerals cross daily into China for processing.
Yet Washington cannot overcome these geographical, military and commercial realities merely by establishing cordial relations with Min Aung Hlaing. Contemplating such would be a remarkable miscalculation should the Trump administration relax pressure on the junta in the expectation of obtaining resources that the junta itself cannot reliably deliver.
If Washington believes better relations with the ruling generals will automatically produce meaningful action against transnational fraud, it may be in for a disappointment.
ASEAN’s uncomfortable embrace
ASEAN faces its own dilemma. Myanmar is a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, yet its civil war has exposed the weakness of a regional grouping built around consensus and what many see as a weak concept of non-interference. As a result, the military’s refusal to relinquish power has left ASEAN struggling to reconcile diplomatic engagement with its stated commitment to a political settlement.
Min Aung Hlaing’s regional visits show that isolation is far from absolute, however. Governments can describe their meetings as a combination of practical discussions about repatriation, humanitarian matters or bilateral interests, but every high-level encounter also has political consequences with the risk being that repeated contact gradually makes military rule appear normal, even as large parts of Myanmar remain beyond the government’s effective control.
ASEAN too needs channels of communication. Humanitarian access, refugee issues, all-important border security and also organised crime across the region cannot be addressed through silence alone.
But there is a substantial difference between talking to an abusive government and treating that government as though the underlying crisis has been resolved. It is a distinction that is becoming increasingly important as Washington also tests the possibilities of engagement.
And in turn it leads to the other uncomfortable part of Myanmar’s story: the selective moral outrage surrounding Aung San Suu Kyi.
The saint who defended the indefensible
For much of her political career, Aung San Suu Kyi occupied an almost untouchable position in Western political imagination. Few dared to publicly question her human rights record.
She was the courageous dissident, the prisoner of conscience, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who stood against military dictatorship. Her struggle became an international symbol of democratic resistance. That image was not entirely undeserved. She spent years under detention and challenged an authoritarian establishment that had systematically denied Myanmar’s population political freedom.
But such actions do not automatically make someone a defender of universal human rights, and and when it came to the Rohingya, Suu Kyi’s record was disastrous.
The persecution of this predominantly Muslim minority long preceded her own government. Myanmar’s 1982 citizenship legislation had already deprived large numbers of Rohingya of recognised citizenship, leaving generations vulnerable to discrimination and exclusion and while Suu Kyi did not create that system, after her party entered government in 2016, she failed to deliver any fundamental changes that might challenge it.
Then, in 2017, the consequences became impossible to ignore.
Following attacks by Rohingya militants, Myanmar’s military launched operations in Rakhine State that were accompanied by widespread killings and sexual violence. Destruction of villages and the flight of hundreds of thousands of civilians into Bangladesh followed.
United Nations investigators subsequently identified evidence warranting investigation and prosecution for genocide and other serious international crimes.
The military at the time was directly responsible for its operations. Suu Kyi, however, had a responsibility to confront the abuses, protect civilians and resist attempts to conceal what had happened. Instead, her government rejected major international findings and restricted independent scrutiny.
The problem was not only that she completely failed to stop the military generals. It was also that she used the political authority she held at the time to step up and defend the indefensible on the international stage while oppression became the norm at home.
In December 2019, Suu Kyi herself appeared before the International Court of Justice in The Hague to represent Myanmar against The Gambia’s genocide allegations.
The woman celebrated internationally for resisting military oppression was now speaking on behalf of a state whose armed forces stood accused of some of the gravest crimes recognised under international law. In the end, her appearance did not amount to a judicial finding of personal responsibility for genocide. Nor did it mean that she had ordered the military’s actions. But it destroyed any credible claim that her public position on the Rohingya was merely one of helpless silence. She had chosen to defend Myanmar’s position before the world’s highest court - a choice she made that deserves to remain central to any assessment of her political legacy.
Minorities were never just a Rohingya issue
The Rohingya are the most internationally recognised victims of Myanmar’s ethnic persecution, but the country’s problems extend far beyond Rakhine State. Ethnic communities in Kachin, Shan and other regions have endured prolonged conflict, displacement and abuses by the armed forces.
The country’s democratic transition did not end these struggles. Nor did the arrival of Suu Kyi’s civilian-led government produce the inclusive political settlement that many minority communities had hoped for. Her administration operated within a deeply unequal constitutional framework. The military retained control of key security ministries, parliamentary representation and considerable autonomy over its operations.
Yet this does not absolve civilian politicians of responsibility for their own rhetoric, policies and political priorities. Suu Kyi’s government completely failed to dismantle the discriminatory framework confronting the Rohingya. It resisted international investigations and did not deliver the protections demanded by minority communities.
The woman idolised by millions stood by and largely ignored the continued persecution of the Rohingya.
For people whose homes had been destroyed, whose citizenship remained denied or whose families had fled military operations, the distinction between an elected civilian government and an unelected military establishment could offer little practical comfort.
A Nobel Prize cannot erase political responsibility
There is a temptation to regard Suu Kyi’s imprisonment following the 2021 coup as sufficient reason to restore her old status as an uncomplicated democratic icon. That would be yet another mistake in the long and twisted history of the country.
Her detention is an injustice. The military’s seizure of power was an assault on the electoral government. Neither proposition requires ignoring what happened under her civilian leadership though. Suu Kyi was wrongfully removed from power, and she failed minorities whose fundamental rights were threatened during her administration - both issues now clear historical fact.
And while Western governments eventually became more critical of her response to the Rohingya crisis, the mythology surrounding her earlier struggle has remained remarkably persistent - the reason why a question for future generations perhaps.
Maybe it was simply easier to present Myanmar’s political conflict as a contest between a beloved democratic figure and a collection of ruthless generals even if Myanmar’s political realities have never fitted neatly into such a story.
The military’s abuses were real. Suu Kyi’s resistance to military dictatorship was real. So too were the failures of her government and the discrimination endured by ethnic minorities as a result.
Trump is changing the calculation, not solving the crisis
Against this history, the Trump administration’s emerging approach looks less like a principled reassessment of Myanmar and more like another exercise in geopolitical bargaining.
Washington already sees China expanding its influence and doesn't like it. It sees valuable mineral resources. It sees organised crime operating across borders. And Washington sees a military government that may be prepared to offer concessions in exchange for diplomatic and economic benefits.
The temptation is thus obvious, but what exactly would the United States be buying?
The junta does not control all the territory it claims to govern and its military campaign has devastated communities and driven mass displacement. Its ability to provide access to resources in contested regions is uncertain and likely impossible.
Meanwhile, American decisions have already weakened some of the people most vulnerable to military rule. The Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID has severely reduced assistance available to refugees, opposition organisations and independent media. The withdrawal of Temporary Protected Status for thousands of Myanmar nationals in the United States has created additional insecurity for people who fear returning home.
It is these decisions that have immediate human consequences, irrespective of whether Washington eventually delivers broader sanctions relief.
Nor should ASEAN mistake greater diplomatic access for political progress. The regional body may have legitimate reasons to communicate with Myanmar’s authorities, but any arrangement that rewards the military without meaningful improvements in civilian protection risks reinforcing the very behaviour that helped produce the crisis.
This must be borne in mind before Min Aung Hlaing can secure another meeting with a foreign leader.
Myanmar doesn’t need another Western fairy tale
The greatest danger for now is that international governments will replace one simplistic narrative with another.
For years, the West elevated Suu Kyi into a near-sacred symbol of democracy while paying insufficient attention to the weaknesses of Myanmar’s civilian political order and the treatment of ethnic minorities. Now there is a risk that Washington will move towards treating the generals as practical partners because they might offer minerals, intelligence or even assistance against criminal networks.
Both approaches place too much emphasis on prominent personalities as is so often the American way in politics, and too little on the people living under their authority.
The Rohingya deserve justice whether Myanmar is governed by generals or elected politicians. Kachin, Shan and other ethnic communities too deserve security and political representation regardless of which foreign government claims to have discovered a new diplomatic solution.
And Myanmar’s wider population and its diaspora deserves something more substantial than another arrangement designed primarily around the interests of Washington, Beijing or regional capitals.
Trump may believe that dealing with Min Aung Hlaing offers opportunities his predecessors neglected. Perhaps limited engagement could secure humanitarian concessions or reduce some of China’s influence. But what should not be negotiable is the historical record.
Myanmar’s military leadership bears responsibility for enormous suffering. Suu Kyi’s government also has serious failures to answer for, particularly over the oppression forced upon the Rohingya.
The West once made the mistake of imagining that Myanmar could be saved by a Nobel Peace Prize winner. It couldn't and she failed with devastating consequences. It should be wary of imagining that the same country can now be fixed by a businessman in the White House shaking hands with a military general - even if he has the minerals Trump lacks.
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