President Trump announced Tuesday that the United States will halt monetary contributions to the World Health Organization while the administration reviews the international body’s management of the pandemic.
“With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have deep concerns whether America’s generosity has been put to the best use possible,” Trump said during his daily White House briefing.
Trump said the WHO failed in its duty to report the truth about the rise of the coronavirus outbreak and hid evidence that the virus could spread from human to human. He added that delays in declaring a global health emergency “cost valuable time” and that many lives could have been saved if the WHO conducted more investigation into reports on the outbreak in China.
“Our country will be forced to find other ways to work with other nations to achieve public health goals,” he said.
Before the health agency declared a global pandemic on March 11, Trump had downplayed the severity of the outbreak, saying the risk to the public was low and likening it to the flu. However, he said Tuesday that the WHO ignored evidence of human-to-human transmission as early as December 2019, saying the organization’s mistakes caused “so much death.”
“The reality is that the WHO failed to adequately obtain, vet, and share information in a timely and transparent fashion,” he said.
The WHO has been the target of Trump’s criticism since the first U.S. case appeared in January. Last week, Trump accused the organization of being too “China-centric” and guilty of pushing “misinformation” about the virus from Chinese health officials.
The U.S. is the largest annual contributor to the WHO, accounting for about 15% of the organization’s budget with roughly $400 million.
The U.S. now leads the world in cases with over 602,900. Meanwhile, China has reported about 83,300 cases as of Tuesday afternoon.
