US lifts sanctions on daughter of military-linked Myanmar businessman

The United States has removed sanctions on the daughter of a Myanmar businessman accused of supporting the military-installed government.

The US Department of the Treasury removed Theint Win Htet from its sanctions list on Friday, according to its website, after she sued them in July.

The decision followed a Reuters news agency report that said US President Donald Trump’s administration has opened talks with Myanmar’s government, a break from years of US policy that sanctioned the generals responsible for a coup in 2021 against Myanmar’s democratically elected government.

In January 2024, the Treasury Department under former President Joe Biden’s administration targeted the Shwe Byain Phyu Group of Companies, which was founded by Theint Win Htet’s father, Thein Win Zaw, along with his family.

The department said the company supplied fuel to the military and owned at least 20 firms with close ties to the military leadership.

Theint Win Htet originally requested her removal in a lawsuit filed against the Biden administration. That case was dismissed last year. She then filed a second complaint in July, arguing that she has no role in her father’s business.

The sanctions had blocked her US credit cards, restricted her foreign bank accounts and forced her to abandon her master’s degree at Columbia University in New York. She now lives in Thailand with her mother, who was taken off the US sanctions list last year.

Theint Win Htet’s lawyer, Washington, DC-based sanctions specialist Erich Ferrari, filed a notice with the federal court in the US capital on Friday to voluntarily dismiss the lawsuit after her delisting.

‘Deplorable’

The group Justice For Myanmar has condemned the Treasury Department’s decision, saying Myanmar’s military is escalating attacks on civilians.

“It is deplorable that the US government continues to delist Myanmar cronies and their family members that provide funding for the junta’s terror,” the ‌group ‌said.

The Biden administration imposed sanctions on military officers and companies after the 2021 coup, which sparked a civil war that has killed about 100,000 people and displaced more than 3.5 million.

Washington lifted sanctions in July last year on several other Myanmar nationals and a company accused of aiding the military.