On Monday, U.S. President, Donald Trump vowed to indefinitely end funding for the World Health Organization and to reconsider his country’s membership in the agency.
Last month, Trump halted U.S. payments to the WHO, accusing it of spreading Chinese “disinformation” regarding the novel coronavirus, with officials at the WHO refuting the allegations, claiming that they were open and clear with all their information.
Trump told its chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in a letter posted on Twitter:
“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,”
Previously, Trump said that the Geneva-based WHO had “done a very sad job” in coping with the novel coronavirus that appeared late last year in China, later mentioning that he would decide on funding soon.
In a letter, Trump said the best path ahead for the WHO was for it to assert independence from China, noting that his administration had started negotiations with Tedros on reform.
Trump also made numerous allegations in the letter against China, including accusations that China tried to obstruct evidence showing that the virus could spread from person to person, pressuring the WHO not to call it an emergency, failing to exchange data and samples, along with much more.
China struck back with its foreign ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, on Tuesday, claiming the letter was slanderous.
Zhao said in a regular briefing:
“The U.S. 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 said the move by the United States to avoid contributing to the WHO was a violation of its international obligations.
A Geneva-based WHO spokeswoman said on Tuesday that the agency had no immediate comment on Trump’s letter but expected to have “more clarity” and a response to it later that day.
Traditionally, the United States provided hundreds of millions of dollars in international support annually related to particular WHO services such as polio eradication, vaccine-preventable illnesses, HIV and hepatitis, tuberculosis, and much more.
The Panthera Post 