US to cut all ties with World Health Organization over virus
31 May, 2020
AMERICA will end its relationship with the World Health Organization over the body’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday, accusing the U.N. agency to become a puppet of China.
The proceed to quit the Geneva-based body, which the United States formally joined in 1948, comes amid growing tensions between Washington and Beijing over the coronavirus outbreak. The virus first emerged in China’s Wuhan city late last year.
Speaking in the White House Rose Garden, Trump said Chinese officials “ignored their reporting obligations” to the WHO about the virus - which has killed thousands of folks globally - and pressured the agency to “mislead the world.”
“China has total control around the world Health Organization despite only paying $40 million annually compared to what america has been paying which is approximately $450 million a year,” he said.
Trump’s decision follows a pledge last week by Chinese President Xi Jinping to provide $2 billion to the WHO over the next two years to greatly help combat the coronavirus. The total amount almost matches the WHO’s entire total annual program budget for last year.
Trump last month halted funding for the 194-member organization, then in a May 18 letter gave the WHO thirty days to invest in reforms.
“Because they have didn't make the requested and greatly needed reforms, we will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs,” Trump said on Friday.
It had been not immediately clear when his decision would enter into effect. A 1948 joint resolution of Congress on U.S. membership of the WHO said the united states “reserves its to withdraw from the business on a one-year notice.”
The World Health Organization did not immediately react to a request for touch upon Trump’s announcement. It has previously denied Trump’s assertions that it promoted Chinese “disinformation” about the virus.
“It’s important to understand that the WHO is a platform for cooperation among countries,” said Donna McKay, executive director of Physicians for Human Rights. “Walking from this critical institution amid an historic pandemic will hurt persons both in america and around the world.”
‘ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL’
The United States currently owes the WHO a lot more than $200 million in assessed contributions, in line with the WHO website. Washington also gives several hundred million dollars annually in voluntary funding linked with specific WHO programs such as polio eradication, HIV, hepatitis and tuberculosis.
Amesh A. Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said that in practice Trump’s decision was unlikely to change the businesses of the WHO.
“From a symbolic or moral standpoint it’s the incorrect kind of action to be taking in the middle of a pandemic and appears to deflect responsibility for what we in the U.S. didn't do and blame the WHO,” said Adalja.
When Trump halted funding to the WHO last month, two Western diplomats said the U.S. suspension was more threatening politically to the WHO than to the agency’s current programs, which are funded for now.
The WHO is an unbiased international body that works together with the US. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last month that the Who's “absolutely critical to the world’s efforts to win the war against COVID-19.”
When asked about Trump’s decision, a U.N. spokesman said: “We've consistently called for all states to aid WHO.”
Trump has long scorned multilateralism as he targets an “America First” agenda. Since taking office, he has quit the U.N. Human Rights Council, the U.N. cultural agency, a worldwide accord to tackle climate change and the Iran nuclear deal. He in addition has cut funding for the U.N. population fund and the U.N. agency that aids Palestinian refugees.
“The Who's the world’s early warning system for infectious diseases,” said U.S. Representative Nita Lowey, a Democrat who chairs the home Committee on Appropriations. “Now, throughout a global pandemic that has cost over 100,000 American lives, is not the time to place the united states further at risk.”
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