The ground shook in Myanmar, and within hours, rescue teams from China and India were digging through rubble. The United States, once the undisputed first responder to global disasters, sent three advisers — then fired them shortly after their arrival.
Not because it lacked capacity. Because it had dismantled its own.
A 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar on March 28. As the death toll climbed past 3,300, the White House struggled to send aid — paralyzed by the Trump administration’s decision to shutter USAID’s disaster response infrastructure. Contracts for logistics were canceled. Rescue personnel were gone. Even the dogs, trained to sniff out survivors, were unavailable.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, standing in Brussels, on Friday waved away concerns. “We are not the government of the world,” he said. Then came the refrain: “Other rich countries should pitch in.”
This is not isolationism. It’s abdication.
The United States did not rise to global leadership simply through GDP or firepower. It did so because, in moments of crisis, it showed up. Earthquakes in Haiti, tsunamis in Asia, famines in the Sahel — America’s soft power was built on the ground, in tents, in field hospitals, under crushed buildings where its teams pulled strangers to safety.
Rubio is not wrong that others must help. But he is dangerously wrong in assuming that withdrawing from the front lines of disaster costs America nothing.
There is no spreadsheet for trust. No line item for influence. But every time U.S. teams landed in a war-torn or devastated zone, they bought goodwill. They countered propaganda. They reminded the world that the American flag could mean hope, not just hegemony.
President Donald Trump’s worldview does not recognize this. His doctrine, if it deserves the word, views foreign aid as a racket — an “industry” that enriches elites and gives nothing in return. The agencies that coordinated America’s global humanitarian response were branded wasteful and dismantled. USAID has been gutted. Its mandate: stop spending money unless the return is immediate and measurable.
Now that return is here — in the form of reputational collapse. In silence where there once was presence. In China, delivering $14 million in aid and a personal call from Xi. In Washington, a $2 million pledge and a press release.
When America shows up, it earns trust. After the 2004 tsunami, U.S. favorability doubled in parts of Southeast Asia. In Pakistan, American helicopters delivering quake relief softened anti-American sentiment.
It’s not just the world that notices when we show up — it’s us. A 2023 poll found that over 65% of Americans, across party lines, support humanitarian assistance in disasters. They may argue about foreign wars or development budgets, but they agree on one thing: When lives are at stake, the United States should lead.
Sadly, that moral certainty has fallen silent. There has been no groundswell demanding that America reflect its professed ideals beyond its borders. No rallying cry to serve the vulnerable, no moral reckoning over the lives lost when rescue was within reach. If compassion is recast as waste, and sacrifice for others as weakness, then what remains of the values we claim to live by?
Rubio insists the junta would have blocked a full American response anyway. That may be true — but he hasn’t shown any evidence of trying. No effort to negotiate access, no mobilization of rapid-deployment teams, no visible attempt to test the junta’s offer or challenge its obstruction.
If this becomes the standard — inaction unless a regime is friendly and guarantees full cooperation in advance — then the United States is signaling it will only help where it is easy, not where it is needed. And when disaster strikes countries like India or others with the means to respond, will the refrain be that they’re rich enough to handle it alone?
The consequences go further than silence. With core aid programs frozen or dismantled, the United States has also weakened the global system built to detect and prevent famine. Once, U.S. satellites, field stations and analysts worked in tandem to spot early signs of mass starvation — allowing for quiet interventions that saved lives. Now, with that architecture unraveled, famines are not only more likely, they are easier to hide. For regimes willing to use hunger as a weapon, the space to act with impunity has widened.
America used to be the country that didn’t wait to be asked. Now, even when asked, it hesitates — hamstrung by deliberate policy.
We’ve already quieted our voice in oppressive regimes by dismantling Voice of America. Now we’ve made sure when the displaced reach for a can of food or clean water in the ruins of their home, it won’t be the American flag they see. Instead, they’ll see China’s. Or Russia’s. Or whoever shows up.
This is not just a foreign tragedy. It is a domestic preview. A time will come when a major earthquake, flood or cyberattack strikes the United States. FEMA, like USAID, has been hollowed out. Federal response capabilities were targeted for cuts under the same ideology that razed foreign assistance.
And when that day comes, the world will remember. Not just our absence — but our excuses.
There will be no surge of foreign teams flying in, no flood of donations from sympathetic nations. Because moral leadership, once forfeited, is not easily reclaimed. Because soft power, once surrendered, is not easily rebuilt. And because the world has heard us say, with no shame and no sorrow: We are not the government of the world.
Not anymore.
We’ve abdicated.
Credit: Bill O'Neill/contributed
Credit: Bill O'Neill/contributed
Brian O’Neill is a retired CIA executive who has served in such leadership roles as deputy director of analysis at the National Counterterrorism Center and as executive editor of the President’s Daily Brief. He now teaches national security at Georgia Tech and contributes to the journal “Just Security” and other outlets.
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