Trump freezes all US funding to WHO, accuses it of 'covering up' coronavirus crisis after outbreak in China
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday, April 14, announced he is directing his administration's officials to halt funding the World Health Organization (WHO).
Reportedly, he accused the WHO of mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus. Per The Guardian, Trump said, “Today I’m instructing my administration to stop funding of the WHO while a review is conducted to assess the WHO’s role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the Coronavirus.”
The update on The Guardian also included that Trump said the WHO has “problems the likes of which no one can believe,” while addressing the press from the White House Rose Garden.
Last Tuesday, Trump accused the WHO of having “called it wrong” and being “China-centric”.
“They’ve been wrong about a lot of things,” Trump said at the daily White House coronavirus task force briefing last week. “And they had a lot of information early and they didn’t want to – they seemed to be very China-centric.”
He further added, “They called it wrong, they called it wrong. They missed the call. They could have called it months earlier. They would have known and they should have known and they probably did know. So we’ll be looking into that very carefully and we’re going to put a hold on money spent [sic] to the WHO. We’re going to put a very powerful hold on it and we’re going to see. It’s a great thing if it works but when they call every shot wrong, it’s not good.”
The head of the WHO, the following day, defended the organization's response to the coronavirus pandemic, directly responding to criticisms leveled by President Trump.
“Please don't politicize this virus. It exploits the differences you have at the national level. If you want to be exploited and if you want to have many more body bags, then you do it,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland.
“If you don't want any more body bags, then you refrain from politicizing it. My short message is: Please quarantine politicizing COVID. The unity of your country will be very important to defeat this dangerous virus," he added.