WHO’s fault?

President Trump makes much of how little use he has for international institutions — that is, until he needs a scapegoat for his own failures.

Trump this week doubled down on the unlikely bet that the world’s most powerful government could blame its mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic on a comparatively small international agency. Following repeated threats to the World Health Organization’s funding, he announced that the United States would begin the yearlong process of withdrawing its membership in the midst of the worst pandemic in living memory.

The WHO first drew Trump’s unwanted attention by differing with his ultimately ineffective ban on travel from China in February, in keeping with the agency’s longstanding opposition to restrictions that hamper international cooperation. More important, the organization is a convenient and relatively powerless target for a president who has botched the U.S. response to the contagion despite having exponentially greater resources than the U.N. agency.

With over 130,000 deaths, 3 million confirmed cases and unchecked spread in several states, America is the world’s undisputed coronavirus basket case. No country has lost more of its citizens to the contagion, and only eight have suffered more deaths per capita. California’s early success in stemming its outbreak has given way to a surge that ranks among the world’s most rapid; Wednesday was the state’s worst day yet for new infections and deaths.

Trump tries to lay all this at the WHO’s doorstep by accusing the organization of failing to challenge China’s understatement of the outbreak early on. It’s a valid criticism, but Trump made the same mistake himself and continued his dithering well after Beijing, the WHO and his own advisers made the threat plain. Nor will any of the international agency’s shortcomings be cured by a cessation of U.S. funding or participation.

The WHO is responsible for coordinating the global response to the pandemic and is most crucial to countries that lack the wealth and capacity to deal with such crises. Its biennial budget of less than $5 billion, of which the United States provides 15%, is about a third of what the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spends over the same period.

When the WHO isn’t responding to the most serious global disease threat in a century, it’s guiding the response to other dangerous infectious diseases, including polio, AIDS and Ebola. Abandoning the agency risks crippling the international response to this epidemic as well as the next.