Trump terminates US cooperation with World Health Organization
United President Donald Trump has announced that his country is ending its cooperation with World Health Organization (WHO). The President has blamed the United National watchdog on health for having a biased relationship with China. He also accused the that China had pressured World Health Organization to mislead the world. Mr. Trump announced the move after threatening the organization throughout the outbreak.
“Because they have failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms, we will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving, urgent global public health needs,” Trump said.
The President said that the “world needs answers from China on the virus. We must have transparency.”
Mr. Trump has received criticism form both side of the aisle as he blasted China on Friday and vowed to take serious retaliatory actions against the country, a move that will further deteriorate the bilateral relationship between the two nations. Earlier launching the attacks on China, Trump accused the country for intentionally concealing the information about the disease.
“Chinese officials ignored their reporting obligations to the World Health Organization and pressured the World Health Organization to mislead the world when the virus was first discovered by Chinese authorities,” Trump said. “Countless lives have been taken and profound economic hardship has been inflicted all around the globe.”
A WHO spokesperson talking to CNN commented, “We have no comment to offer at this point.”
The President had previously hinted on temporarily freezing the funds to the WHO and wrote a letter to the agency earlier in May saying that the United States would permanently halt funds if the WHO did not “commit to major substantive improvements in the next 30 days.”
Trump also came up with the false claims about the date of disclosure of COVID-19 information by The Lancet, prompting the reputed medical journal to refute the claims. Trump has a history of challenging the global organizations as he has throughout his Presidency criticized the various international institutions including UN, Northern Atlantic Treaty Organization and WTO: World Health Organization for taking advantage of United States. The Skeptic leader has raised questions on US funding to UN and the NATO, withdrawn from the Paris climate accords signed by pervious administration and consistently threatened the World Trade Organization.
He also blamed the Chinese nation for hurting United States by encroaching on their jobs and now failing to curb the spread of novel coronavirus. Despite recording a poor response to the deadly disease with shortages of crucial medical supplies and lower testing rates, the President has upvoted himself and praised his administration for the handling of the corona pandemic.
WHO has been slammed for not timely reporting COVID-19 information and relying solely on the figures passed on by Chinese authorities which were misleading to many officials of the administration. The organization was also in hot waters for its Jan 14 tweet that concluded that no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission was found according to preliminary investigations by Chinese authorities.
Defunding the World Health Organization has raised concerns among health experts, US lawmakers and global audience. Patrice Harris, president of the American Medical Association termed Trumped Friday’s remarks as “senseless” and having significant, harmful repercussions.”
“COVID-19 affects us all and does not respect borders; defeating it requires the entire world working together,” Harris said in a statement. “In the strongest terms possible, the American Medical Association urges the President to reverse course and not abandon our country’s leadership position in the global fight against COVID-19.”
Republican party. Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee also opposed the decision saying, “I disagree with the president’s decision.”
“Certainly, there needs to be a good, hard look at mistakes the World Health Organization might have made in connection with coronavirus, but the time to do that is after the crisis has been dealt with, not in the middle of it,” the Senator said in a statement.
The decision also received a push back by Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
“The United States cannot eliminate this virus on our own and to withdraw from the World Health Organization — the world’s leading public health body — is nothing short of reckless,” Manchin said in a statement. “Throughout our nation’s history, the United States has always risen to lead the world through crisis and I believe we must continue to do that now.
“I strongly urge the President to reconsider this decision and I urge all my Congressional colleagues to speak out. It’s time for us to stand tall,” he continued.
