…Most notably, the sanctions rollback will derestrict the country’s dirty jade industry. The jade trade is worth billions of dollars that flow through tangled channels to shady interests, including illicit gangs and corrupt military officials. Jade profits fuel ethnic conflict and sustain the military’s influence — forces that threaten to thwart five years of rapid progress…

Some experts fear the removal of sanctions will hurt the United States’s ability to influence Myanmar’s most troubled sectors…

The Jade industry also funds conflict in the country’s resource-rich frontier and causes environmental degradation in areas subject to little scrutiny...