“I can attest personally that in my work as the Director of National Intelligence; the Deep State is fighting us every step of the way. It exists within every single federal agency… We are pushing hard. I know that they are pushing hard back.”
That was Tulsi Gabbard—not speaking as a pundit, but as the sitting Director of National Intelligence—confirming exactly what’s unfolding inside the State Department today. As President Trump fights to realign US foreign policy around peace, trade, and realism, the entrenched bureaucracy at Foggy Bottom is doing everything it can to drag America back into endless war and ideological crusades.
Nowhere was that sabotage more apparent than on July 7, 2025, when President Trump sent a tariff letter to Myanmar’s military chairman, Min Aung Hlaing—a move that bypassed the deep State entirely and sent the bureaucracy into quiet revolt. Trump’s letter fired the opening shot in this now direct confrontation with the deep State—an ossified cartel of Soros-backed NGO activists, liberal career bureaucrats, and neocon regime-change fanatics who still think they run US foreign policy. For four years, they waited in the shadows, clinging to their titles, pretending the 2020 election wasn’t stolen. Now, even with Trump back in charge, they’re still defying him—openly, aggressively, and without consequence.
Trump’s letter, a blunt notice of a 40 percent tariff on all Myanmar exports, was addressed directly to “the Chairman”—Min Aung Hlaing’s formal title. For Myanmar’s generals, long isolated and demonized by the very institutions Trump has spent years dismantling, it was a symbolic breakthrough. The Myanmar military immediately seized on the moment, forming a national task force to manage US engagement and publicly praising Trump’s leadership and “America First” trade doctrine. Min Aung Hlaing even echoed Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was rigged—a not-so-subtle wink at the President’s legitimacy that no foreign head of State had dared voice before.
Yet, while Nay Pyi Taw was popping champagne, the Beltway was boiling over.
The State Department, still crawling with Soros alums and liberal NGO functionaries in diplomatic drag, rushed to tamp down any suggestion that the US was recognizing Myanmar’s military leadership. Channel News Asia and The Guardian both confirmed that US diplomats “do not officially engage” with the Myanmar Military, that the letter “does not signal recognition,” and that Washington “continues to call for dialogue with the opposition.” A State Department spokesperson went further, rehashing the same tired 2021 script about military violence and political prisoners—statements that have achieved precisely nothing over the last four years.
And why would they?
It’s the same network of neocon holdovers who once gave us Iraq, Libya, and Syria—and now want to do the same in Myanmar. These people love a failed state, especially when it’s one they helped break. They don’t want a negotiated settlement with the Myanmar military; they don’t want peace for over 54 million innocent civilians. They want an uprising they can fund, a resistance they can co-opt, and a client state they can manage from Washington, D.C.—preferably with the World Bank, IMF, and Open Society Foundations on speed dial.
This was clear as day earlier this year when reports surfaced that the deep state operatives within the NSC had refused to fire NSC staffers Trump had personally blacklisted. They were promoted instead. It wasn’t a misunderstanding. It was a message: the deep state lives, and it answers to itself.
This is the reality of Trump’s Foreign Policy—not a clean pivot, but a knife fight in the corridors of American power. On one side, the President of the United States, using tariffs as a lever to force strategic engagement. On the other hand, an unelected priesthood of activist diplomats, radical liberal technocrats, and neocon warmongers still clinging to their decade-old fantasy of “democracy promotion,” even as the country they’re trying to save has moved on.
And nowhere is that rebellion more flagrant than in the halls of the National Security Council.
The Neocons Still Live!!! The National Security Council’s Continued Marriage with Soros-Backed NUG
Despite President Trump’s sharp pivot toward transactional diplomacy with Myanmar’s military leadership, internal resistance to this policy shift has not come solely from left-leaning activist bureaucrats at the State Department. Evidence now confirms that remnants of the pre-Trump national security establishment—particularly neoconservative Republicans embedded within the National Security Council (NSC)—continue to sabotage the administration’s evolving Burma strategy.
According to a July 2025 communications exchange between US policy contacts and diplomatic sources, the Soros-linked National Unity Government (NUG)—a parallel government in exile with collapsing operational control—was granted closed-door meetings in Washington with both State Department officials and an official from the NSC. The fact that the NUG, widely discredited by battlefield commanders and abandoned by multiple battalions in 2025, was given access to White House-adjacent personnel is not just symbolic—it is politically damning.
The NSC official in question was identified as Ivan Kanapathy, the only remaining East Asia-Pacific staffer after Trump’s NSC purge. Kanapathy, a Bush-era neoconservative and former military attaché, has long cultivated ties to Southeast Asian activist networks and holds no MAGA credentials. As described by one official familiar with the meeting, Kanapathy is “masquerading as a Trumper” while quietly maintaining legacy alliances rooted in a failed democracy promotion agenda. His unauthorized meeting with NUG representatives was conducted without clearance from the President, or the administration’s top officials—an act of bureaucratic defiance.
This is no longer conjecture. As confirmed by The Independent and Headline USA, President Trump personally ordered the firing of several NSC staffers earlier this year, including Kanapathy. However, the NSC defied the President’s orders, keeping these individuals in place and even promoting at least one of them. Headline USA quotes internal sources describing NSC’s maneuver as “a middle finger to Trump.” The report goes further, asserting that “the treacherous advisor Trump wanted fired was instead promoted—an open challenge to presidential authority, and a clear act of resistance from inside the building”
Trump allies—including media figures and Hill operatives—went public, accusing the NSC bureaucracy of running a parallel foreign policy. The case of Myanmar proves their point. Trump seeks to engage the leaders of the world—regardless of whether they pass the Deep State purity test—on terms rooted in sovereignty, tariffs, and mutual trade benefits. Yet, NSC loyalists to the pre-2020 playbook continue to quietly funnel legitimacy, access, and oxygen to “regime changing” hopes like the NUG—a group that no longer holds battlefield command, has lost legitimacy among ethnic resistance partners, and is now facing desertions, drug trafficking scandals, and rogue drone attacks it can’t even account for.
It is worth repeating: the NUG is no longer a viable entity, even in the eyes of many PDFs. Since February, at least seven battalions have defected from the NUG’s Ministry of Defense—some joining more established and capable Ethnic Armed Groups, others operating independently. In March, the NUG went so far as to arrest its own PDF leaders for attempting to resign, a sign of its waning internal legitimacy. That this group still walks the halls of the NSC—hosted not by accident but by active bureaucratic protection—is nothing short of sabotage.
President Trump’s team must reckon with the reality that the NSC remains infiltrated. What should have been a clean break from the activist-neocon consensus of the Obama and Bush eras has instead become a standoff. A President can issue an order—but if that order is ignored, and the offender is promoted, then what follows is not policy—it is insurrection by another name.
A tariff may open a door, but if that door is quietly closed behind the President’s back and reopened to the Soros-funded exiles of a collapsing revolution, then the message is clear: the war within Washington is not over.
And in Myanmar, it’s not the White House calling the shots—it’s the treacherous survivors of yesterday’s failed ideologies, still embedded deep inside the national security apparatus.
Activist-Aligned Bureaucrats and Continued Backing of the NUG
Within the State Department, a cohort of career diplomats and advisors—many with portfolios focused on human rights and democracy—have quietly continued to support Myanmar’s shadow government in exile, the NUG. This collection of liberals and neo-conservatives has banded together to still actively promote “regime change,” even as the Trump White House pivots away from this sort of interventionist foreign policy across the world. These so-called “activist-aligned bureaucrats” remain deeply invested in the previous US policy of isolating the Tatmadaw and empowering the NUG, a parallel government formed by ousted lawmakers and ethnic leaders. Despite the change in administration, their course has not reversed.
US Embassy staff and regional diplomats continue to maintain close ties with Burmese civil society and pro-democracy groups, such as the NUG. Burmese-language media and diaspora groups report ongoing informal meetings between US officials and NUG representatives. NUG Foreign Minister Zin Mar Aung publicly stated years ago that her then newly established liaison office in Washington, DC, was aimed at preserving diplomatic channels with sympathetic US actors. “I have seen people in the U.S. government increasingly warming to the NUG,” said one U.S.-based advocate at the time of the office’s opening—crediting mid-level officials within State and other agencies who, despite the fractured State of the pro-democracy armed movement and ethnic armed groups territorial gains and leverage over the Burmese-majority, still view the NUG as Myanmar’s rightful representative.
Concrete evidence of this quiet backing emerged immediately after President Trump’s tariff letter to SAC Chairman Min Aung Hlaing. U.S.-based Myanmar democracy activists quickly mobilized, sending letters to the State Department and Congress to express their objections. Groups like Save Myanmar USA, with long-standing ties to Foggy Bottom, raised their concerns directly with officials. “We raised concerns that the U.S. President is engaging with a sanctioned figure,” activist Ko Yin Aye told DVB News. The fact that such activists could access State channels so swiftly—without rebuke—points to an alignment of values and goals between diaspora groups and the career officials who manage Burma policy day-to-day. Rather than discourage the backlash, State Department personnel reportedly reassured activists of continued support for the democracy cause, signaling privately to NUG supporters that “we stand with you, not the generals.”
Even as the Trump White House moved to slash democracy assistance programs and dismantle USAID’s Burma portfolio, there are signs that career officials are finding ways to sustain pro-democracy engagement. Before its reorganization, USAID had been using BURMA Act funds to support capacity building programs that “taught local communities how to vote,” DEI programs, and non-lethal support for the pro-democracy movement. While those programs were abruptly halted under Trump’s orders to merge USAID with the State Department and eliminate staff, Burmese civil society leaders report ongoing US engagement via alternative channels—such as small grants routed through the National Endowment for Democracy or discreet coordination on cross-border aid. A leaked cable, reported in Burmese media, showed diplomats encouraging NGOs on the Thai-Myanmar border to “keep up their important work,” while quietly promising support would resume in due time. These behind-the-scenes efforts illustrate how parts of the US bureaucracy continue to support the NUG’s cause—despite the White House’s overt pivot toward engagement with the SAC.
Notably, the NUG’s Foreign Ministry office in Washington has maintained access to mid-level State Department personnel even after the Trump transition. In February 2023, a State Department official attended the NUG office’s opening ceremony—a symbolic nod to its legitimacy. In September 2023, senior advisor Derek Chollet met with Zin Mar Aung and affirmed “unwavering U.S. support” for democratic efforts. These quiet, often unpublicized meetings reveal that the foreign policy establishment’s default sympathies remain with the NUG. Burmese-language sources continue to report informal contacts between NUG officials and US embassy personnel into 2025, reinforcing the perception that a “deep state” of pro-democracy loyalists is keeping the old Burma policy alive, irrespective of new directives from the top.
This tension between political leadership and diplomatic bureaucracy came into sharp focus following the catastrophic March 28, 2025, earthquake in Myanmar. The Trump administration authorized $9 million in humanitarian aid, which was delivered via the UN and ICRC, and required formal coordination with the military for customs clearance and logistical access. Yet, US Embassy officials on the ground told Burmese NGOs and media that there was “no direct engagement” with the Myanmar Military government (SAC) —a claim contradicted by operational realities.
This episode encapsulates the dual-track nature of US policy toward Myanmar. Officially, Washington engages pragmatically to facilitate humanitarian relief, but on the ground, embassy personnel continue to maintain the fiction of non-engagement in order to placate activist circles and preserve moral distance. This quiet dishonesty reveals the deeper resistance within the US diplomatic apparatus: even when the President authorizes cooperation, some State Department officials deny or obscure that cooperation—undermining the coherence, credibility, and execution of US policy in the process.
The Deep State Fights Back: Clinton Creatures and the Myanmar Meltdown
Inside the State Department, President Trump’s pivot to transactional engagement with Myanmar’s generals didn’t just provoke alarm—it set off a bureaucratic meltdown. Career diplomats and Clinton-era foreign policy holdovers—many of whom spent years coddling Aung San Suu Kyi, bankrolling ineffective “democracy promotion” NGOs, and cozying up to the very institutions that failed to prevent Myanmar’s collapse—have been quietly fuming. But now, the gloves are coming off.
Leaks to friendly media outlets, bitter off-the-record quotes, and sanctimonious warnings from former ambassadors reveal a diplomatic class in open revolt against the White House. The Politico National Security Daily newsletter put it plainly: Trump’s letter to Min Aung Hlaing “equated [the] Myanmar military chief…with a lawful head of state” by addressing him as “His Excellency.” That single phrase—His Excellency—sent the State Department’s “Burma desk“ into convulsions. Not because it was inaccurate, but because it shattered the fantasy they’ve clung to for four years: that the US can pretend the generals don’t exist.
Indeed, reports suggest some US officials lodged internal objections to treating the military as a negotiating partner. According to Myanmar Now, a draft statement by a coalition of concerned State and Congressional staff circulated in early July, affirming that the US “has not changed its stance of holding the military accountable“ and that Trump’s letter did not confer legitimacy (this was in response to worried queries from allies). While that statement did not appear officially, its existence underscores an internal effort to push back against any perception of US recognition of the SAC.
Another avenue of dissent has been whistleblowing and leaks about aid cuts. For instance, an internal memo obtained by Reuters in June revealed that nearly all USAID funding to Myanmar had been frozen, except emergency humanitarian aid. Humanitarian groups sounded the alarm, and it emerged that even State Department officials were “alarmed“ at the wholesale dismantling of democracy assistance programs. This leak served to embarrass the administration and has been interpreted as a protest from within the bureaucracy – essentially highlighting how the Trump team’s moves (like dissolving USAID’s Burma programs) were sabotaging US support for the democracy movement. The dissent channel – a formal State Dept mechanism – may also have been used; while those communications are secret, the media hints that Myanmar policy has been a hot topic for internal dissent memos in 2025.
Moreover, local US embassy staff in Yangon have quietly continued their work in ways at odds with Trump’s approach. Embassy social media accounts in Burmese still refer to the military as “the military regime“ and highlight its atrocities. For example, a June embassy post commemorating Rohingya victims pointedly blamed “the military regime’s repression and escalating violence in Myanmar”. Such language, coming just weeks before Trump’s letter, signaled to Burmese audiences that the US mission’s stance hadn’t softened. It is likely that embassy officials, in concert with allies like the EU mission, intentionally kept a hard line to counter any military narrative of US acceptance. This can be seen as a subtle form of resistance, or at least message discipline, that contradicts the spirit of Trump’s outreach.
To these entrenched officials—many of whom built their careers on appeasing autocrats while virtue-signaling about democracy—Trump’s letter wasn’t just unexpected. It was an existential threat to the liberal internationalist worldview they’ve spent decades enforcing. According to one unnamed official (leaked, of course, through Politico), “We have no idea what the hell he’s sending, who he’s sending it to or how he’s sending it.” That’s not analysis. That’s a tantrum. And it confirms what everyone already suspects: these bureaucrats aren’t running the show anymore, and they hate it.
Normally, a presidential letter of this significance would be cleared through the interagency process—read: filtered, watered down, and neutered by every mid-level bureaucrat with a George Soros fellowship on their CV. But this time, Trump cut them out. The result? Internal rage. A rupture of protocol. And open sabotage by the foreign policy clerks who now see their influence slipping away.
Former US ambassadors Scot Marciel and Derek Mitchell—two of the most prominent relics of the Clinton foreign policy machine—have emerged as the unofficial spokesmen of this revolt. Marciel, who spent the Obama years cozying up to Suu Kyi and attending civil society roundtables that yielded little, while China secured significant gains in Myanmar, lamented that Trump’s tariff letter could “undo years of efforts“ to build regional trust. In other words, it might actually change something.
Derek Mitchell, the first US ambassador to Myanmar post-reform and a longtime Clinton loyalist, went further—accusing Trump’s strategy of “pushing countries closer to China.“ Of course, what Mitchell refuses to admit is that it was his own do-nothing engagement strategy that opened the door to China in the first place. For a decade, these men presided over a “Burma policy“ that empowered oligarchs, emboldened the military behind the scenes, and left ethnic minorities to rot under broken ceasefires. Their solution? More dialogue. More donors. More democracy conferences in Yangon hotels funded by taxpayer dollars.
These are the “regime-happy“ diplomats who shook hands with generals in private and condemned them in public. Who preached democracy while coordinating with the World Bank to finance military-adjacent infrastructure. Who propped up the NLD, ignored ethnic resistance groups, and now cry foul when Trump recognizes the political reality they helped suppress. They are the Clinton creatures—unelected, unaccountable, and absolutely furious that America First is back. And their rage isn’t just ideological. It’s personal. Trump didn’t just bypass their institutions. He humiliated them. He proved that four years of virtue signaling, sanctions, and moralistic press releases had achieved nothing. One letter from Trump did more to trigger engagement from the SAC than four years of State Department “pressure.”
This is why their knives are out. Because if Trump succeeds in flipping Myanmar into a functional trade partner—one that plays both China and America to its own advantage—it will expose the entire failure of the Clinton-Biden-Blinken foreign policy consensus. It will prove that diplomacy isn’t about who you moralize—it’s about who you talk to when it matters.
And that’s why they’re fighting him—not because Trump’s strategy is reckless, but because it might actually work.
Support for the NUG’s Washington Office and Links to George Soros
Another facet of this behind-the-scenes contradiction is the financial and organizational support directed toward the NUG’s presence in Washington, D.C., often via third parties and philanthropies aligned with the pro-democracy cause. The NUG established an official liaison office in D.C. in late 2022 to engage with the US government and international community. While the Trump administration has not officially recognized this office, it has quietly tolerated it. More tellingly, resources and endorsements have flowed to the NUG from activist networks, including those connected to financier George Soros’s Open Society Foundations (OSF).
Notably, Open Society Foundations has been a vocal and material supporter of Myanmar’s democracy movement for decades. In February 2023 – just months before Trump took office – OSF explicitly urged the world to “recognize the civilian National Unity Government… as the legitimate representative of Myanmar.”. This public call by Soros’s foundation underscored its alignment with the NUG, and it was accompanied by continued funding for Burmese civil society. OSF’s press release commemorating two years since the coup highlighted that OSF “began supporting Myanmar’s democracy movement in exile in the 1990s“ and had a presence in-country until the coup, working on initiatives from inclusive education to democratic institutions. After the coup, OSF shifted to backing the resistance in exile. According to Reuters, OSF’s local branch (Open Society Myanmar) was accused by the military of funneling cash to the Civil Disobedience Movement, as the regime seized OSF bank accounts in 2021. OSF denied wrongdoing, but the military’s own claims inadvertently confirmed that significant funds were being channeled to anti-military activities – likely including support for striking workers, activists, and possibly NUG-linked projects.
In Washington, the NUG’s office has benefited from these activist funding streams. While official US aid to the NUG is basically nil (and the NUG publicly “rejects [the] claim“ that it is on any “U.S. payroll”), private funding and diaspora donations have sustained its operations. Many of these donations trace back to philanthropic outfits. Burmese exile groups in the US have long received grants from organizations like OSF for democracy advocacy. For instance, the US Campaign for Burma and other Burma advocacy NGOs historically got Soros funding; those same networks are now rallying around the NUG. Sources in the Burmese diaspora report that OSF’s Open Society Action Fund quietly provided grants in 2023-2024 to support Burmese advocacy in D.C., effectively underwriting some of the NUG’s lobbying efforts. Though specifics are closely held, The Irrawaddy reported that pro-military propagandists circulated an (unfounded) figure of “$200 million annually“ from the US to the NUG. This was exaggerated, but it hints at the substantial sums raised by Burmese democracy advocates from sympathetic donors. In reality, some of that support comes from George Soros’s network and allied philanthropies – a fact not lost on the military or on Trump’s aides who view Soros-funded initiatives with suspicion.
One tangible link: Alexander Soros (George Soros’s son, now chair of OSF) has engaged with Myanmar issues and met NUG representatives. The Myanmar military’s media itself published photos of George and Alex Soros meeting Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in happier times, suggesting Soros had the ear of Myanmar’s democratic leadership. Post-coup, OSF’s call to recognize the NUG and its condemnation of military atrocities effectively put the Soros organization squarely behind the NUG’s legitimacy. Through OSF and related entities, funding is likely being funneled to support the NUG’s information campaigns and its office. This might include paying for lobbyists or consultants. For example, the NUG recently hired a US lobbyist, John Todoroki, as an envoy to engage with the Trump administration, and questions have arisen about whether private donors (potentially OSF or wealthy Burmese expatriates) are financing this effort. An April 2025 filing showed that NUG’s acting president Duwa Lashi La appointed Todoroki as envoy, suggesting a coordinated lobbying plan – something that would typically require significant funding.
At the bureaucratic level, State Department “activist“ officials have not impeded these outside support channels – if anything, they’ve encouraged them. When the NUG’s D.C. office opened, the presence of a State official and the attendance of think-tank allies signaled an unofficial US blessing. And although President Trump eliminated most direct US assistance via USAID, Congress (including Democrats and some Republicans) has kept some funding for Burmese democracy alive, often via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the Open Society network. The result is that the NUG’s operations in Washington are buoyed by a patchwork of non-governmental funding and political support that runs parallel to (and sometimes under the radar of) the official administration. George Soros’s role is part of a broader pattern of the so-called “deep state“ and civil society teaming up: Soros-funded groups pressuring for continued isolation of the military, career diplomats lending a sympathetic ear, and members of Congress of both parties critical of any legitimation of Myanmar’s generals.
While President Trump attempts to bring US policy back to reality with tariffs and leverage, D.C.’s activist machine continues to bankroll the fantasy. The NUG—discredited on the ground and fractured internally—is alive in Washington thanks to Open Society Foundations, NED, and a swarm of Soros-aligned NGOs that rushed in after Trump froze official aid. The State Department claims it’s not funding the NUG. Maybe not directly. However, activist bureaucrats within Foggy Bottom are still greasing the wheels—setting up meetings, sharing intelligence, and ensuring the exile government remains relevant in congressional offices and think tank roundtables.
It’s classic deep state sabotage: fund the proxy, bury the President’s agenda, and keep the regime-change dream alive. They don’t care that the NUG is collapsing—they care that it still serves their script. One Trump letter disrupted their narrative. So now, they’re using soft power to fight back—with Soros cash and bureaucratic subversion.
State Department Sidelined and Backlash Over Tariff Diplomacy
President Trump’s Myanmar tariff letter didn’t just disrupt business as usual—it blew up the State Department’s entire operating script. The decision to hit Myanmar with a 40 percent tariff, delivered straight to Min Aung Hlaing with “His Excellency“ on the envelope, was made by Trump’s inner circle—not the bureaucrats at State, and certainly not the Burma desk lifers still clinging to the failed policies of Clinton and Blinken.
It wasn’t just bold. It was intentional. No interagency coordination, no warning to the embassies, no Foggy Bottom filters. Just a direct, unignorable message from the President of the United States to a government the State Department has spent four years pretending doesn’t exist.
And they hated it.
State Department insiders, Clinton-era leftovers, and career “Burma-watchers“ went straight into damage-control mode. Leaks began circulating in D.C. press circles. According to Myanmar Now, a draft statement began circulating among State and Congressional staff in early July asserting that the US “has not changed its stance“ toward the SAC—a bureaucratic attempt to undermine the White House’s diplomatic move before it even got off the ground.
Simultaneously, Soros-linked democracy NGOs and their allies at State began pushing narratives that Trump was abandoning the Burmese people, fueling Congressional concern and media hysteria. Reuters published leaked memos showing the freeze on USAID democracy funds—portrayed as “alarming”—even though the cuts were part of the White House’s plan to redirect resources away from ineffective vanity projects and toward leverage-based diplomacy. These leaks weren’t incidental. They were the slow-rolling sabotage of a policy they disapproved of—and one they hadn’t designed.
Caught in the middle of this storm? Secretary of State Marco Rubio. A true Trump loyalist, Rubio has long understood what many at State will never admit: that the institution is bloated, broken, and incapable of real strategic recalibration. Insiders say Rubio was likely aware of the letter strategy—but given that the very people beneath him are entrenched in Clinton-era orthodoxy, he wisely chose not to preview a single word to the desk officers, regional envoys, or mid-level diplomats who would have leaked it to kill it.
Instead, Rubio went to the ASEAN Regional Forum in Kuala Lumpur on July 10 as a one-man cleanup crew—tasked with tamping down regional hysteria and calming allies who’d been blindsided. “Rubio said the right things,“ one analyst noted, “but he was flying blind. The letters went out before his team could even blink.“ The White House had sent tariff notices to 14 countries—including eight in ASEAN—without passing through the usual diplomatic gauntlet. That was by design. Because Trump knows that if you send a new policy through State, it comes out the other side dead.
US diplomats in Southeast Asia—especially those still married to the old model of “isolate the generals, fund the NUG”—were furious. Embassy Rangoon had no heads-up. Neither did diplomats in Bangkok, Tokyo, or Singapore. That vacuum created precisely the kind of resentment Trump’s team anticipated—and refused to accommodate.
The backlash came fast: a leaked ASEAN joint statement expressed “concern“ over US tariffs. One diplomat called Rubio’s visit “a containment mission.“ Meanwhile, back in Washington, State’s Burma desk reportedly froze, refusing to engage on implementation or facilitate follow-up negotiations with Min Aung Hlaing’s trade team. Instead of helping broker a counteroffer or revised tariff terms, State adopted a “wait-and-see“ posture, publicly reiterating that sanctions on the military remain, and privately hoping the deal would die on its own.
And behind the scenes? Open resistance. Foreign Policy magazine quoted anonymous officials “aghast“ that Trump would send what looked like a recognition letter. One analyst sniped, “It’s Trump’s policy by tweet—and the professionals are left cleaning up the mess.“ But that’s precisely the point. The “professionals” aren’t trying to clean it up—they’re trying to stall it, bury it, and make it disappear.
Even worse, members of Congress who had long been fed the NUG fairytale were looped in after the letter was dropped. Mitch McConnell reportedly leaned on Rubio in private, demanding reassurances that the US wasn’t legitimizing Myanmar’s military. But these concerns are based on narratives State has cultivated for years—a fantasy where the NUG wins, China gets pushed out, and everything goes back to 2015. That world is gone. Trump is negotiating with the facts on the ground. Foggy Bottom is still chasing ghosts.
In short, Trump dropped the tariffs and the Deep State bureaucrats. They’re still hiding behind press statements and “dissent memos,“ hoping this White House initiative collapses under the weight of their inertia.
