> I have no idea how the USA would react to something like that.

We know how USA has reacted in the past; it carries on as if nothing happened.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/us/politics/immolation-wh...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/15/david-bu...

I assume there are more examples, that's just first page picks from a cursory google search.

Malachi Ritscher's suicide by self immolation in protest of the Iraq war made a strong impression on me at the time. That was near the end of 2006. It seemed to go unnoticed by most everyone else, though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malachi_Ritscher