Less than a decade after it came in from the cold, Myanmar is once more facing the freeze. Since the mili-tary forcefully seized power on Feb. 1 over unhappiness with the country’s elections, huge crowds of anti-coup protesters have taken to the streets daily. The crackdown seems to be intensifying, with police opening fire on protesters and threatening further violence.
As a result, the governments of countries like the U.S., UK, Canada and New Zealand have already announced sanctions against the generals who led the coup, and military-linked companies.
For Myanmar, the escalating crisis places precious foreign direct investment at risk. Before the coup, investment in Myanmar was on the up. The World Bank reported a 33 percent jump in total foreign direct investment commitments in Myanmar to $5.5 billion in fiscal year 2019/2020, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, total trade in goods between the U.S. and Myanmar reached nearly $1.3 billion in the first 11 months of 2020, up from $1.2 billion in all of 2019, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.