Trump: U.S. funding freeze to WHO could be permanent

President Donald Trump threatened to permanently end funding to the World Health Organization and pull out of the international body altogether in a letter blasting its coronavirus response and accusing its head of “political gamesmanship.”

The letter, which Trump revealed in a tweet Monday evening, listed a number of criticisms of the WHO’s initial response to the novel coronavirus in the early days of the outbreak in China.

He claimed the WHO “ignored credible reports of the virus” and accused the organization of acting too slowly and bowing to pressure from the Chinese government. Trump said that had Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus followed the example of the WHO during the SARS outbreak in 2003, during which it strongly criticized Chinese attempts to cover up the spread of the virus, “many lives could have been saved.”

The letter, addressed to Tedros, continued that 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 World Health Organization permanent and reconsider our membership in the organization.”

“I cannot allow American taxpayer dollars to continue to finance an organization that, in its present state, is so clearly not serving America’s interests,” Trump’s letter read.

Trump suspended U.S. funding to the WHO last month, offering similar complaints to the ones in Monday’s letter. The move was widely panned as a deflection technique from Trump’s own slow response to the virus. Prior to the suspension, the United States was the largest donor to the WHO.

The WHO acknowledged receipt of the letter and said it is “considering the contents” in a statement Tuesday morning.

The Trump administration had also made its displeasure with the WHO known during the organization’s annual meeting Monday. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said the WHO had “failed at its core mission” — and that “in an apparent attempt to conceal this outbreak, at least one member country” ignored its transparency obligations, an apparent reference to China.

Beijing, meanwhile, hewed closer to the WHO and Europe as Chinese President Xi Jinping endorsed the principle of making any vaccine produced in his country globally accessible.

That announcement leaves the U.S. in an increasingly isolated position at the WHO.

In a video message to the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the WHO, Azar echoed Trump’s critique, citing “a failure by this organization to obtain the information that the world needed” as one of the “primary reasons this outbreak spun out of control.”

Xi expressed openness to a WHO-led inquiry into the pandemic on Monday, backing “the idea of a comprehensive review of the global response to COVID-19 after it is brought under control.”

A coronavirus response resolution on track to be adopted on Tuesday by WHO member countries calls for the WHO chief to launch a review of the response, including the global body’s actions, “at the earliest appropriate moment.”

Tedros endorsed the idea Monday and pledged to initiate it.

Azar also embraced an inquiry, but with a barb, calling the status quo “intolerable” and saying the Geneva-based institution needs to be “far more transparent and far more accountable.”

“Although we are all focused on the immediate response, we need a more effective WHO right now,” he added.

But the second day of the virtual assembly is likely to be dominated by fallout from Trump’s explosive four-page letter, in which the president excoriated the WHO and Tedros personally for his handling of the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak and global spread.

“You … strongly praised China’s strict domestic travel restrictions but were inexplicably against my closing of the United States border, or the ban, with respect to people coming from China. I put the ban in place regardless of your wishes,” wrote Trump. “Your political gamesmanship on this issue was deadly, as other governments, relying on your comments, delayed life-saving restrictions on travel to and from China.”

Trump contrasted Tedros’ performance to that of the WHO’s previous chief, Gro Harlem Brundtland, during the SARS outbreak in 2003. Trump said she “did not hesitate to criticize China for endangering global health by attempting to cover up the outbreak through its usual playbook of arresting whistleblowers and censoring media.”

“Many lives could have been saved had you followed Dr. Brundtland’s example,” wrote Trump.