Trump’s WHO attack leaves the world less safe

Donald Trump is nothing if not audacious. His decision to cut off funding to the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic is a bald attempt at deflection.

Day-by-day it becomes more apparent how badly Trump and his administration have mismanaged the COVID-19 crisis. The human toll is already horrific and it will be much more so before this is over. It has failed on testing availability, on providing personal protective equipment and was slow to call for social distancing. On Jan. 22, when the WHO was warning of the growing threat, Trump said: “We have it under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control.”

But since Trump and his advisers are thumping themselves on the back for their brilliant crisis management, they cannot allow any responsibility to fall on the faltering president. Instead, they’re deep into a game of “look ... see what’s happening over there ...” in a fruitless attempt to pin the blame elsewhere.

If reaction from world leaders is any indication, that’s not going to work, nor should it. The WHO is far from perfect, and it arguably did make mistakes early on by taking too much of what China said at face value. But the idea that those shortcomings justify withholding $900 million of the WHO’s $5.6 billion budget at a time of unprecedented crisis is ludicrous. And dangerous, not just to the WHO but countries, including Canada, who count on it.

What Trump is really doing is accusing the health organization of making mistakes he himself made. Previously, he has blamed former president Barack Obama, Democratic members of Congress and, of course, the media. And he has bluntly said: “I don’t take responsibility at all” for the mismanagement.

At the centre of Trump’s complaint about the WHO is that it “took China’s assurances to face value” and “pushed China’s misinformation” early on in the outbreak. And yet it was Trump who repeatedly and loudly praised China for its management of the epidemic. In fact, one of his tweets — subsequently reported by the New York Times — said “China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States appreciates their efforts and transparency.”

Trump also does not acknowledge that it was the WHO that began issuing warnings in mid-January about the scale of the pandemic threat, including regular warnings from Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus who said: “We have a window of opportunity to stop this virus. But that window is closing.”

In spite of that, countries, especially the U.S., were slow to act.

Health, science and political leaders around the world have been quick to condemn Trump’s selfserving funding cut. University of Edinburgh expert Devi Sridhar said in media reports: “This is a shortsighted decision which will be disastrous to the agency. We need the WHO more than ever to support all countries, especially low-and-middle-income ones.”

Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development said: “It is a transparent attempt to shift blame for the U.S. administration’s own failings” adding it “leaves the U.S. and the world less safe.”

No, the WHO is not without flaws and failure. Asian political expert François Godement said: “The WHO didn’t take into account a huge amount of unofficial evidence that was coming out of China about the virus that was being relayed quite publicly on social media.”

But that doesn’t justify this tactic by Trump to take the spotlight off of his own failure and the terrible legacy it will leave behind.