Myanmar: Economic Leverage — Sanctions, Jet Fuel and Divestment

Summary

Despite years of sanctions meant to cut Myanmar's junta off from funds, arms and jet fuel, the US has spent 2025–26 rolling sanctions back even as the junta's jet fuel imports doubled and airstrikes intensified.

What it argues

1. US rolls back sanctions

   US quietly removed sanctions on five individuals and companies tied to the junta's arms trade on 2025-07-24. The move came two weeks after junta chief Min Aung Hlaing wrote to Trump praising his 'strong leadership'. In 2026-10 the US delisted the daughter of a sanctioned fuel-supplying tycoon amid reported reopened US–Myanmar talks. Washington is dismantling, individual by individual, the sanctions regime it built after the coup.

2. TPS and rare earths

   The US ended Temporary Protected Status for Myanmar nationals in November 2025, per Human Rights Watch. The Diplomat reports the Trump administration explored access to Myanmar's rare earths via talks with the junta or the Kachin Independence Organisation, partly to sideline China. Strategic and immigration moves are running alongside, and reinforcing, the sanctions rollback.

3. Experts condemn the rollback

   Tom Andrews called the July 2025 delisting 'a major step backward' and 'unconscionable', saying sanctions had cut junta arms imports by over 30% from 2023 to 2024. HRW's John Sifton called it 'extremely worrying', warning of a shift away from punitive US policy. A Trump administration official said the decision was unrelated to the junta chief's letter. Rights monitors say Washington is reversing sanctions it itself judged effective.

4. Jet fuel imports double

   Junta-controlled port data show aviation fuel imports rose from 64,562 to 140,306 metric tonnes between 2024 and 2025, per Justice For Myanmar. Amnesty International and Reuters evidence points to Iran's 'shadow fleet' and Vietnamese transshipment now supplying that fuel. Justice For Myanmar names four vessels and their owners, managers and a Vietnamese terminal operator for sanctions. The fuel behind the junta's air campaign is still flowing, now through new evasion routes.

5. MOGE only partly sanctioned

   MOGE, the junta's largest foreign-revenue source, faces only a US financial-services directive, not a full freeze; only the EU has fully sanctioned it. Myanma Petrochemical Enterprise, which controls the fuel supply chain, remains a named but unsanctioned target. Tom Andrews has urged extending sanctions to Myanmar Economic Bank, which the military uses to pay for weapons. The junta's main financial arteries remain only partially cut, years into the sanctions campaign.

6. Uneven global coverage

   Justice For Myanmar's 2024 review found India, Japan and South Korea had imposed no sanctions at all since the coup. State-linked firms from those countries — KOGAS, POSCO International, Bharat Electronics — continue business tied to the junta. Many crony firms keep registered companies in Singapore despite being sanctioned elsewhere. Gaps between jurisdictions let junta-linked revenue keep moving outside sanctioned channels.

7. Sanctions challenged in court

   Theint Win Htet, daughter of Shwe Byain Phyu founder Thein Win Zaw, sued the US Treasury and won her delisting in October 2026. Her lawyer argues she has no role in her father's fuel-supplying business; Justice For Myanmar called her delisting 'deplorable'. Her mother was delisted in 2025; the family's firm had been sanctioned for supplying fuel to the military. Individual legal challenges are now unwinding sanctions alongside policy decisions.

8. International courts press on

   The ICC prosecutor's November 2024 request for an arrest warrant against Min Aung Hlaing remains undecided by judges. The ICJ accepted further state interventions in Gambia's genocide case in July 2025, with merit hearings expected January 2026. An Argentine court issued universal-jurisdiction arrest warrants for 25 individuals over Rohingya crimes. Judicial accountability efforts continue on a separate, slower track from economic sanctions.