GENEVA - The withdrawal of sanctions against individuals and companies that have provided weapons, military supplies and other material support to the Myanmar military is a shocking turn in U.S. policy that risks emboldening Myanmar's military junta and its enablers, a UN expert said today.
"This is a major step backward for international efforts to save lives by restricting the murderous junta's access to weapons," said Tom Andrews, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar. "It is unconscionable to undermine these efforts by rolling back sanctions on Myanmar arms dealers and junta cronies."
Andrews noted that companies removed from U.S. sanctions lists have all been implicated in the arms trade, including brokering the junta's acquisition of weapons and raw materials and supplies needed to produce weapons, ammunition, and equipment domestically. These companies and their owners have reportedly facilitated the sale of aircraft, surveillance systems, naval guns, and technology for armoured personnel carriers and tanks to the Myanmar military.
The Special Rapporteur has reported on how weapons and materials obtained from abroad have supported the junta's campaign of violence and brutality against civilians, which has included military airstrikes and other attacks on villages, camps for displaced persons, schools, hospitals, clinics, monasteries, churches and mosques. These attacks likely constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes.
"The junta's use of weapons of war to attack civilians has been devastating, and this is a fact that the Trump administration has recognized by calling out the military junta for these attacks and other grave human rights violations," said Andrews.
"What makes this action even more appalling is that sanctions against the junta are proving to be effective. The volume of military equipment that the junta was able to import declined by over 30 percent from 2023 to 2024 in part because of sanctions imposed by the United States and other nations."
On 4 February, President Donald Trump signed a notice extending the Executive Order that underpins U.S. sanctions on Myanmar, saying "The situation in and in relation to Burma, and in particular the February 1, 2021 coup, continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States."
In a statement at the UN on 10 June 2025, Acting U.S. Representative to the UN Economic and Social Council Jonathan Shrier said that the military continues to, "bomb civilians, schools, and houses of worship; and forcibly conscript Rohingya to fight on behalf of those that committed genocide against them," and blamed the military for blocking the delivery of humanitarian aid.
"This is a dangerous and disturbing trend. Rather than removing sanctions, the U.S. should be extending them to include Myanmar Economic Bank, the key junta-controlled financial institution that it relies on to pay for imported military equipment," Andrews said.
"I urge the Trump administration to stand with the people of Myanmar and reconsider its decision to make it easier for the military junta to attack them with sophisticated weapons of war. It is literally a matter of life and death."
