Top Republican senators voiced support for President Trump’s suggestion that the United States should pull its funding for the World Health Organization as the group faces allegations that it has a pro-China bias, leading to a botched coronavirus response.
Trump criticized the WHO at the White House coronavirus task force briefing on Tuesday for not supporting a travel ban he implemented on China earlier this year meant to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus from the country where it originated, and he raised the possibility of putting a “very powerful hold” on the “vast amounts” of funds the U.S. gives it.
He later walked back the remark when questioned by a reporter about whether it was good timing to freeze funding.
“I’m not saying I’m going to do it, but we are going to look at it,” Trump responded, adding that it will be something his administration will “investigate.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham weighed in on Fox News soon after.
“I’m going to take the burden off the president — in the next appropriations bill, there’s not going to be any money for the WHO,” the South Carolina Republican said. “I’m in charge of the Appropriations Subcommittee, and I’m not going to support funding the WHO under its current leadership.”
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Graham said the WHO was composed of “Chinese apologists” and had been “deceptive” and “slow.” He said, “I don’t think they’re a good investment under the current leadership for the United States.”
The Senate Judiciary chairman added that he thought it was “in America’s best interests to withhold funding” until “they change their behavior and get new leadership.”
Sen. Marco Rubio, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he would “work with the Trump administration to ensure the WHO is independent and has not been compromised by the CCP before we continue our current funding.”
“The Chinese Communist Party used the WHO to mislead the world,” the Florida Republican said. “The organization’s leadership is either complicit or dangerously incompetent.”
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has been criticized for his longtime friendliness toward China, and the WHO repeatedly and vocally opposed any countries imposing travel restrictions against China.
Tedros argued in late January that “there is no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade” and “the WHO doesn’t recommend limiting trade and movement.”
But the Trump administration ignored this and placed limitations on travel to and from China at the end of January. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, credited this move with helping slow the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S.
The WHO was still arguing against travel bans at the end of February. “WHO continues to advise against the application of travel or trade restrictions to countries experiencing COVID-19 outbreaks,” the WHO said, adding, “Travel bans to affected areas or denial of entry to passengers coming from affected areas are usually not effective.”
Trump said on Tuesday that “we pay for a majority, the biggest portion of their money, and they actually criticized and disagreed with my travel ban at the time I did it, and they were wrong.”
The president said the WHO “seemed very China-centric.” Earlier in the day, Trump criticized the WHO on Twitter, saying it “really blew it.”
The WHO has a $4.8 billion budget, to which the U.S. is the largest contributor. In its fiscal 2021 budget proposal, the Trump administration seeks to reduce the amount Congress delegated to the agency in 2020, around $111 million, to about $58 million. The U.S. also voluntarily gives between $100 million and $400 million more each year to the WHO for specific projects.
U.S. officials and lawmakers have repeatedly raised questions about whether the WHO was being unduly influenced by China. Taiwan warned the WHO about the contagious threat posed by the coronavirus in December, but its warnings went unheeded. WHO senior adviser Bruce Aylward, who has lavished praise on China’s response, got the WHO into a storm of bad publicity recently when he refused to answer questions about Taiwan.
Sen. Rick Scott of Florida called for a congressional investigation of the WHO earlier this month. “We know Communist China is lying about how many cases and deaths they have, what they knew and when they knew it — and the WHO never bothered to investigate further,” he said.
The WHO concluded the COVID-19 virus first appeared in the city of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province in China, and an investigative report in February found “early cases identified in Wuhan are believed to have acquired infection from a zoonotic source” in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market.
As of Tuesday night, there were more than 1.42 million confirmed coronavirus cases around the world and more than 82,000 deaths tied to the infection, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. In the U.S., there were more than 398,000 cases, which have resulted in more than 12,800 deaths.
