Washington:
US President Donald Trump on Friday said that America was terminating its relationship with the World Health Organization (WHO) as he blamed it and China for the deaths and destruction caused by the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe.
Trump last month halted funding for the 194-member organization, then in a May 18 letter gave the WHO 30 days to commit to reforms.The move to quit the Geneva-based body, which the United States formally joined in 1948.
Trump’s decision follows a pledge last week by Chinese President Xi Jinping to give $2 billion to the WHO over the next two years to help combat the coronavirus. The amount almost matches the WHO’s entire annual program budget for last year.
“China has total control over the World Health Organization despite only paying $40 million per year compared to what the United States has been paying which is approximately $450 million a year,” he said.
Stating that the funding of the WHO would now be diverted to other global public health organisations, Trump announced a series of decisions against China including issuing proclamation to deny entry to certain Chinese nationals and tightening of regulations against Chinese investments in America.
Trump also announced that the US will end special treatment of Hong Kong in response to Chinese imposition of new controls.
He said that the US will revise its travel advisory to warn of surveillance in Hong Kong.
The world needs answers from China, Trump said in his aggressive speech on a bright sunny day from the Rose Garden of the White House.
.“It’s important to remember that the WHO is a platform for cooperation among countries,” said Donna McKay, executive director of Physicians for Human Rights. “Walking away from this critical institution in the midst of an historic pandemic will hurt people both in the United States and around the world.”
The United States currently owes the WHO more than $200 million in assessed contributions, according to the WHO website. Washington also gives several hundred million dollars annually in voluntary funding tied to specific WHO programs such as polio eradication, HIV, hepatitis and tuberculosis.
Amesh A. Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said that in practice Trump’s decision was unlikely to change the operations of the WHO.
“From a symbolic or moral standpoint it’s the wrong type of action to be taking in the middle of a pandemic and seems to deflect responsibility for what we in the U.S. failed to do and blame the WHO,” said Adalja.
“The WHO is the world’s early warning system for infectious diseases,” said U.S. Representative Nita Lowey, a Democrat who chairs the House Committee on Appropriations. “Now, during a global pandemic that has cost over 100,000 American lives, is not the time to put the country further at risk.”
For decades it has ripped off the US like no one has ever done before, Trump said, reiterating his charges against China.
China not only stole intellectual property, took away billions of dollars from the US and offshored the jobs, but also violated its commitment under the World Trade Organization, he said, adding that it was able to get away with the theft, like no one before because of past politicians and past presidents.
China, he alleged, has unlawfully claimed territories in the Indo-Pacific ocean, threatening freedom of navigation and international trade and broke its word to the world on ensuring the autonomy of Hong Kong.
The United States wants an open and constructive relationship with China, but achieving this relationship requires us to vigorously defend our national interest, he said.
Trump alleged that the Chinese government has continually violated its promises to the US and many other nations.
These plain facts cannot be overlooked or swept aside, he said.
Observing that the world is now suffering as a result of the malfeasance of the Chinese government, Trump reiterated that China's cover-up of the Wuhan virus allowed the disease to spread all over the world, instigating a global pandemic that has cost more than 100,000 American lives and over one million lives worldwide.
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. Countless lives have been taken, and profound economic hardship has been inflicted all around the globe, he said.
China, he said, has total control over the WHO despite only paying USD 40 million per year compared to what the US has been paying which is approximately USD 450 million a year.
We have detailed the reforms that it must make and engage with them directly, but they have refused to act.
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.