7th April, 2020
U.S. President Donald Trump is seeking to blame the World Health Organisation for the coronavirus crisis sweeping through his country.
Slamming the UN health agency as too China centric, Trump threatened withdrawal of U.S. funding.
‘The W.H.O. really blew it,’ Trump tweeted on Tuesday.
‘For some reason, funded largely by the United States yet very China centric. We will be giving that a good look.’
Some American conservatives have also blamed WHO for ‘helping Communist China cover up a global pandemic.’
The United States is the largest contributor to the agency’s $4.8billion budget.
But reports aid Trump has already proposed in the White House’s budget request for fiscal year 2021 a reduction of the fund for the agency, from roughly $122 million to less than $58 million.
Trump’s attack coincided with his own attack domestically.
Democratic governors, lawmakers and pundits have condemned Trump’s response in combatting the virus, suggesting he did too little, too late.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is one of his critics, complaining of initial Federal neglect in rushing medicine, ventilators and protective gears.
The WHO entered Trump’s black book when it failed to recommend the closure of borders when the coronavirus outbreak began in Wuhan.
Trump ignored the advice and imposed a travel ban to foreign nationals who had recently been in China.
His administration also imposed a mandatory two-week quarantine for U.S. citizens returning from the country’s Hubei province.
The policies appeared not to have worked, such that the U.S. has become the new epicentre of the disease.