US President Donald Trump has announced the suspension of US funding for the World Health Organization.
"The WHO has failed in its basic mission," he told reporters after the pandemic broke out, referring to his predictions that the new coronavirus would spread.
"I order the suspension of funding from the World Health Organization for as long as research is conducted to examine the role of the WHO in mismanaging and masking the spread of the coronavirus," the US president said initially.
Both Donald Trump and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have been outspoken in their actions, accusing the World Health Organization of siding with China, despite what the Republican president has typically said is the United States. the main financier of the Organization.
The US president accuses China of hiding information about the new coronavirus and not presenting the real numbers of victims and cases. In a recent interview, Mike Pompeo, in fact, had repeated the above scenario, saying that "this is not the time to seek responsibility", but this will happen after the crisis.
In fact, Donald Trump, in his information to the journalists today, accused the WHO for concealing information about what happened and is happening in Wuhan, China.
The share of US funding in the World Health Organization budget is more than 15%, according to 2019 data. According to CNN, this amount amounts to $ 400 to $ 500 million per year.
"As the pandemic unfolds, we are deeply concerned about whether US generosity may prove useful," said Donald Trump, referring to US funds provided to the WHO.
Trump has been criticized for initially downplaying the threat, and he has also been blamed for long delays in launching diagnostics and expanding them.
On February 24, the US president announced via Twitter that the pandemic was "under control" in the US.
"If the WHO had done its job and sent experts to China to study the situation on the ground objectively, the epidemic could have been limited to its source with very few deaths," the US president said yesterday.
For several days now, the Trump administration has been sharply critical of this UN agency based in Geneva, specifically denouncing its very favorable position, in its view, towards Beijing.
The US president denounces that the measures he announced to deal with the crisis, such as the closure of the border, met with "strong resistance" from the WHO, at a time when he "continued to praise Chinese leaders for their 'willingness to share information'. ”.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also said yesterday that the United States would push for a "radical change" in the functioning of the international organization.
"In the past, WHO did its job. "Unfortunately, this time, he did not do the best he could, and (…) we will put pressure on him to change radically," he said.
The lifting of the quarantine in the States is underway
Trump also referred to the lifting of the lockdown. The US president said he would talk to all 50 US governors to guide them and plan for a gradual restart of the economy. For some states, in fact, the Republican president plans to lift the restrictive measures, and in particular the quarantine, before May 1.
Source: protothema.gr