US sanctions on Myanmar have failed and the next American administration may change tactics to bring about reforms in the Southeast Asian state, according to the head of a top US business lobby group in the region.

“We can’t escape the conclusion that our policies have simply not moved Myanmar in the right direction nor do they have any reasonable prospect of doing so,” said Matthew Daley, the president of the US-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Business Council.

“The simple truth is that no country, not even the UK, supports current American policy in its entirety,” he said at a forum organised by the Washington-based, conservative Heritage Foundation.

Daley, the former Southeast Asia head in the US State Department, said US policy did not have the backing even within ASEAN, of which Myanmar is a member together with Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

“I don’t think that the government in Hanoi, the government in Vientiane, the government in Phnom Penh are going to take or permit ASEAN to take drastic action against (Myanmar),” he said.

“I think people probably see a change in approach in the future administration” – irrespective of whether it is led by a Republican or Democratic president, he said.

His comments came just two days after the US Congress overwhelmingly passed resolutions maintaining a ban on imports from Myanmar as part of sanctions for alleged human rights abuses.

Two months earlier President George W. Bush renewed sanctions that prohibited new investments and exports of financial services and deny visas to top government officials. – AFP