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United States President Donald Trump says he has ordered his administration to suspend funding for the World Health Organization (WHO).
He said the WHO had “failed in its basic duty” in its response to the coronavirus outbreak.
He accused the UN body of mistreating and covering up the spread of the virus after it emerged in China, and said he should be held responsible.
Trump has previously accused the WHO of being biased towards China.
The President of the United States himself has been criticized at home for his handling of the outbreak.
“I am ordering my administration to suspend funding while a review is underway to assess the World Health Organization’s role in severe mismanagement and cover up the spread of the coronavirus,” Trump said at a White House press conference. .
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“The WHO failed in its basic duty and must be held accountable,” he added.
In response to Trump’s comments, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that now “was not the time” to cut resources for the WHO.
The United States is WHO’s largest single funder, with $ 400 million (£ 316 million) last year, just under 15% of its total budget.
China’s contribution in 2018-19 was nearly $ 76 million in assessed contributions and about $ 10 million in voluntary funds, according to the WHO website.
The organization launched an appeal in March for $ 675 million to help combat the pandemic and is reportedly planning a new appeal of at least $ 1 billion.
“With the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have deep concerns about whether the generosity of the United States has been used in the best possible way,” said the president.
The United States is the country most affected in the coronavirus pandemic with 608,377 cases and 25,981 deaths.
President Trump accused the WHO of not properly evaluating the outbreak when it first emerged in Wuhan City.
“If WHO had done its job of bringing medical experts into China to objectively assess the situation on the ground and denounce China’s lack of transparency, the outbreak could have been contained at its source with very little death,” he told reporters. .
“This would have saved thousands of lives and avoided global economic damage. Instead, the WHO voluntarily took China’s guarantees to face the courage … and defended the actions of the Chinese government.”
However, White House reporters noted that Trump himself praised China’s response to the outbreak and downplayed the danger of the virus at home.
What about locks?
Speaking in the Rose Garden at the White House, President Trump also said plans to reopen the country were “close to being finalized.”
Trump caused a furor on Monday when he said that he, and not state governors, had the authority to lift the blockades and restart the economy.
But on Tuesday, he changed his position, saying: “The governors are responsible. They have to take charge.”
“The federal government will monitor them closely. We will hold the governors accountable, but we will work with them to make sure everything is going really well.”
Experts agree that it is the governors who are responsible for monitoring their states under US law.
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On Tuesday morning, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo accused President Trump of “spoiling a fight.”
“We don’t have a king, we have a president,” he said.
New York State has the majority of cases, with nearly 190,000 cases and more than 10,000 deaths. However, there are signs of improvement with the number of people needing hospital treatment who fall the first time.
Trump points to China’s growing influence
On one level, this movement is about the coronavirus. Administration officials have severely accused the WHO of missteps in handling the pandemic, saying it was biased toward China.
They say the WHO was too prepared to support China’s misleading initial claims about the virus, and then did not press hard enough against Beijing’s attempts to hide its misinformation. In particular, President Trump has held fast to WHO criticism of his travel restrictions against China.
But on another level, the move to underfund the WHO is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to reduce China’s growing global influence.
The argument is that Chinese leadership in international organizations undermines the responsible and rule-based international system that is needed to prevent and combat a pandemic.
But, the Wall Street Journal reports that the decision also stems from an ongoing discussion on whether to link aid dollars to the number of Americans working in groups that receive them.
Why has WHO faced criticism?
It is not the first time that WHO’s response to the outbreak has come under scrutiny.
In February, he said that widespread travel restrictions were not needed to stop the spread of Covid-19, a tip that was eventually ignored by most countries.
In March, the UN agency was also accused of being unduly influenced by China after a senior official declined to discuss Taiwan’s response to the outbreak.
Meanwhile, some health experts also say the WHO’s guidance on face masks has generated public confusion.
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