President Donald Trump declared Tuesday he is stopping funding to the World Health Organization while a survey is conducted. Trump said the survey would cover the WHO’s “job in seriously failing and concealing the spread of coronavirus.” Trump’s declaration comes in the most exceedingly awful worldwide pandemic in decades and as he indignantly protects his own treatment of the flare-up in the United States.
In the midst of twirling inquiries concerning whether he minimized the emergency or disregarded admonitions from individuals from his organization about its potential seriousness, Trump has looked to relegate fault somewhere else, including at the WHO and in the news media.
The US reserves $400 million to $500 million to the WHO every year, Trump stated, taking note of that China “contributes generally $40 million.”
Had the WHO carried out its responsibility to get medical specialists into China to impartially survey the circumstance on the ground and to get out of China’s absence of straightforwardness, the episode could have been contained at its source with almost no demise,” Trump said.
His decision to withdraw funding from the WHO follows a pattern of skepticism of world organizations that began well before the coronavirus pandemic. Trump has questioned US funding to the United Nations, withdrawn from global climate agreements and lambasted the World Trade Organization — claiming all were ripping off the United States.
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said earlier Tuesday that while the WHO and China “made mistakes,” Trump is also looking to deflect blame from his own administration.
“Right now, there is a very coordinated effort amongst the White House and their allies to try to find scapegoats for the fatal mistakes that the President made during the early stages of this virus,” he said.
Murphy added: “It is just wildly ironic that the President and his allies are now criticizing China or the WHO for being soft on China when it was in fact the President who was the chief apologist for China during the early stages of this crisis.”
Trump said Tuesday if the WHO had acted fittingly, he could have initiated a movement restriction on individuals originating from China sooner.
He said the WHO made a “risky and exorbitant” choice to contradict travel limitations from China.
n any case, only days before Trump founded his restriction on voyagers from China, he additionally was applauding the nation.
On January 24, Trump tweeted: “China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!”
Tuesday’s announcement about the halting of funding came days after a major US ally — the United Kingdom — announced an additional £65 million contribution to the WHO.
The move to freeze the funding is the latest in a series of administration actions against international multilateral organizations. Prior to the pandemic, the administration’s fiscal year 2021 proposal laid out a $65 million cut to the World Health Organization — a more than 50% decrease over FY20.
