Trump threatens funding freeze in latest WHO row
US President Donald Trump on Monday threatened to permanently halt funding for the World Health Organization if it did not commit to improvements within 30 days, and to reconsider his country’s membership of the agency.
Trump suspended US contributions to the WHO last month, accusing it of promoting Chinese “disinformation” about the novel coronavirus outbreak, although WHO officials denied the accusation and China said it was transparent and open.
“If the WHO does not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days, I will make my temporary freeze of United States funding to the WHO permanent and reconsider our membership,” Trump told its chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in a letter posted on Twitter.
Earlier, Trump said the Geneva-based WHO had “done a very sad job” in its handling of the coronavirus, and he would make a decision on funding soon.
Trump also made various accusations against China in the letter including that it tried to block evidence and refused to share data.
China hit back yesterday with its foreign ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, saying the letter was slanderous.
“The US leadership’s open letter is filled with phrases of suggestions, maybes, and potentialities, and is trying to mislead the public through this specious method, to achieve the goal of smearing and slandering China’s efforts in epidemic prevention and to shift responsibility in its own incompetence in handling the epidemic,” Zhao told a regular briefing.
Zhao said the US decision to stop contributing to the WHO was a violation of its international obligations.
A WHO spokeswoman in Geneva said yesterday the agency had no immediate comment on Trump’s letter but expected to have “more clarity” and a reaction to it later in the day.
The WHO, a UN specialized agency, is leading a global initiative to develop safe and effective vaccines, tests and drugs to prevent, diagnose and treat COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
The United States contributed more than US$400 million to the WHO in 2019, or about 15 percent of its budget.
This year, the United States has already paid the WHO about US$58 million, senior Trump administration officials said last month, half of what it is required to pay for 2020 — known as an assessed contribution.
The United States traditionally provides several hundred million dollars annually in voluntary funding tied to specific WHO programs like polio eradication, vaccine-preventable disease, HIV and hepatitis, tuberculosis, and maternal and child and health.
It was not clear how much voluntary funding the United States has provided for WHO programs in 2020.
The European Union backed the WHO after Trump threatened to quit the global agency.
“This is the time for solidarity, not the time for finger pointing or for undermining multilateral cooperation,” European foreign affairs spokeswoman Virginie Battu-Henriksson said.
“The European Union backs the WHO in its efforts to contain and mitigate the COVID-19 outbreak and has already provided additional funding to support these efforts.”
Also on Monday, Trump said he has been taking the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to protect against the virus even though scientists say there is no evidence of its effectiveness against the disease and his own administration has warned it should be administered only in a hospital or research setting because of potentially fatal side effects.
(Agencies)