WHO shall I blame
Hit for 100,000 deaths, Don axes cash to health agency
President Trump announced Friday that his administration is severing all ties with the World Health Organization, charging that the global group hasn’t been upfront about how the coronavirus pandemic spread from China.
Trying to steer the conversation away from his much criticized COVID-19 response, Trump stripped the WHO of the $450 million it usually receives from the U.S. every year.
Speaking in the White House Rose Garden, Trump said that cash will now instead bankroll more “urgent global public health needs.” He did not elaborate.
Trump, whose administration has faced scrutiny over its lagging response to the COVID-19 pandemic, pointed fingers at the WHO for not being transparent about China’s early efforts to contain the virus and claimed the organization is under “total control” by Beijing’s Communist regime.
“China has total control over the World Health Organization despite paying only $40 million per year,” Trump said. “We have detailed the reforms that it must make and engaged with them directly, but they have refused to act.”
The U.S. is the largest source of financial support for the WHO. Its exit is expected to significantly weaken the organization, which is a specialized agency within the United Nations responsible for international public health.
The U.S. pullout comes even as the world struggles to come to grips with the coronavirus pandemic.
More than 100,000 Americans
have already died from the contagion and the U.S. economy is in disarray, with more than 40 million workers forced into unemployment.
Trump also announced in the Rose Garden that his administration is blocking certain graduate-level Chinese students from applying for U.S. visas over concerns that they may be using them to steal American intellectual property.
After making the dual announcements, Trump left the Rose Garden without taking any questions.