posted with permission
hat tip to Jason Gale
***** Halts U.S. Payments to WHO, Saying It Failed to Share Data
2020-04-14 23:18:44.181 GMT
By Jordan Fabian
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald ***** said he instructed
his administration to temporarily halt funding to the World
Health Organization for taking China’s claims about the
coronavirus “at face value” and failing to share information
about the pandemic as it spread.
“The WHO failed in its basic duty and must be held
accountable,” ***** said Tuesday at a White House press
conference. “The outbreak could have been contained at its
source” if the organization had correctly responded early on, he
added.
It’s unclear when any halt in payments would take effect or
how much authority ***** has to suspend disbursements, which are
authorized by Congress. The U.S. has contributed about $893
million to the WHO’s operations during its current two-year
funding cycle, according to the organization.
The move to limit support to the WHO in the midst of a
global pandemic is unprecedented. Yet as domestic criticism of
the ***** administration’s response has increased and the U.S.
became the epicenter of the outbreak, many of the president’s
supporters have pointed to the WHO for making early mistakes
they say have undermined the U.S. and worsened the crisis.
***** on Tuesday pointed to a WHO statement in late January
opposing travel bans as a response to the coronavirus outbreak.
The president instituted travel restrictions on China in late
January, later extending it to the European Union and U.K.
“One of the most dangerous and costly decisions from the
WHO was its disastrous decision to oppose travel restrictions
from China and other nations,” ***** said. “Had other nations
likewise suspended travel from China, countless more lives would
have been saved.”
The head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has been
singled out for blame among some of the president’s critics.
Tedros has pushed back, saying now is not the time to politicize
the pandemic.
One person who reached out to ***** to try to get him to
hold off on suspending payments to the WHO was United Nations
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Guterres, through the U.S.
envoy to the UN, acknowledged WHO missteps in the pandemic, but
argued that now is not the time to be pointing fingers.
Some aides to the president have argued that cuts to the
WHO now could be counterproductive because it is one of the few
agencies with access to some of the world’s most vulnerable
populations in Yemen, Libya and Syria, which could all be hit
hard by the virus, according to one person.
The president has sought in the past to cut U.S.
contributions to the World Health Organization, even before the
virus outbreak. In its proposed 2021 budget, the administration
called for reducing voluntary contributions to the WHO by more
than half, to about $58 million.
While ***** criticized WHO reliance on Chinese information
in the early day of the crisis, the president repeatedly praised
China and its president, Xi Jinping, for its handling of the
coronavirus outbreak in January and February. But he said Friday
that the WHO is “very, very China-centric. China always seems to
get the better of the argument, and I don’t like that.”
To contact the reporter on this story:
Jordan Fabian in Washington at
jfabian6@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Alex Wayne at
awayne3@bloomberg.net
Bill Faries, Joshua Gallu
https://sputniknews.com/us/202004141...d-19-pandemic/
