Speaking at a White House press briefing on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump sought to denounce the World Health Organization (WHO), criticizing the organization’s slow response to the coronavirus crisis and its apparent bias towards China.
Trump complained that the WHO, which “receives vast amounts of money from the United States” did not agree with his decision to impose restrictions on travel from China in late January, which was “very wrong” and that the organization seemed to be very “China-centric.”
The WHO has opposed travel bans due to the economic damage they cause. However, Trump accused the organization of “not seeing” and not reporting the outbreak when it was first detected in Wuhan, even though it had repeatedly issued warnings about the emergence of the virus in China and its spread across the world.
Suggesting that the premier health institution always favors China, despite massive US funding, Trump said that he was going to put a hold on money spent on the WHO, before backtracking later and saying that his administration would investigate the organization and “look at ending funding.”
The WHO has a total budget of about $6 billion, with contributions from member countries, non-profit organizations, foundations, universities and government alliances. After the United States–which contributed about 14.67% of its funding in 2018-19 –the next three largest funders were the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (9.76%), the GAVI Alliance (8.39%), and the United Kingdom (7.79%).
Image Source: The Independent
Trump Threatens to Pull Funding from WHO, Calls it “China-Centric”
Trump said his administration would investigate the organization.
April 8, 2020
