Trump threatens to permanently pull funding from WHO and ‘reconsider’ US membership

President Donald Trump on Monday May 18, threatened to permanently pull US funding from the World Health Organization over the Coronavirus pandemic. 

In a four-page letter addressed to WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus, the US President criticized the stages of the body’s response to the outbreak of the disease since December.

Trump insisted that the international health agency shares the responsibility for the large number of deaths in the crisis and further threatened to pull US funding permanently and also reconsider US membership in the organization, if it does not commit to “major substantive improvements” within 30 days. 

The US President who disclosed that talks on reforming the WHO had already begun, had earlier called the UN health body a “puppet of China”.

The letter read in parts; 

“It is clear the repeated missteps by you and your organization in responding to the pandemic have been extremely costly for the world. The only way forward for the World Health Organization is if it can actually demonstrate independence from China.

“My administration has already started discussions with you on how to reform the organization. But action is needed quickly. We do not have time to waste.

“It is clear the repeated missteps by you and your organization in responding to the pandemic have been extremely costly for the world. The only way forward for the World Health Organization is if it can actually demonstrate independence from China.

“My administration has already started discussions with you on how to reform the organization. But action is needed quickly. We do not have time to waste.”

Trump also criticized the WHO for the “political gamesmanship” of praising China’s strict domestic travel restrictions and being “inexplicably against my closing of the United States border.”

He highlighted WHO’s reaffirmation of “China’s now-debunked claim that the Coronavirus could not be transmitted between humans.”

This is coming after Trump temporarily halted funding to the organization last month. The US President who faces re-election this year and has repeatedly been criticized over the way he’s been handling the Coronavirus pandemic, has consistently blamed China for trying to cover up the outbreak and also accused the WHO of failing to hold Beijing to account.

China has however denied the allegations numerous times, while also arguing that the country had released information “in an open, transparent, responsible and timely manner”.

The president of China, Xi Jinping during an annual meeting of the World Health Assembly on Monday, said China would support the WHO conducting an investigation, while defending that his country has “acted with openness, transparency and responsibility.”

The US has more than 1.5 million of the world’s 4.8 million confirmed cases of coronavirus so far, with more than 90,000 deaths.