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| Trump Threatens to End WHO Funding, Withdraw U.S. |
President Donald J. Trump threatened to permanently end U.S. funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) and withdraw the United States from the body if it does not commit to “major substantive improvements” (WaPo) within thirty days.
Trump decried what he called an “alarming lack of independence” from China and detailed a series of alleged failures in the organization’s handling of the pandemic in a letter to the WHO director general, which the president posted on Twitter. A spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry said that the United States was trying to “smear China and shift blame for its own incompetent response.” |
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| Analysis |
“If US policy is to be more than posturing, it must consult [with] others on a package of 1) WHO reforms & 2) terms of reference for a new org that would take on some of its functions,” tweets CFR President Richard N. Haass.
“An interim assessment of the COVID-19 pandemic response could help the WHO and national governments make important adjustments in real time,” CFR’s Thomas J. Bollyky and David P. Fidler write in Foreign Affairs. |
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