U.S President Donald Trump has threatened to permanently stop WHO funding unless 'substantive improvements' are made within the next few weeks.
The President suspended U.S. contributions to the WHO last month when he accused the organization of encouraging China to spread disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic, which the WHO officials denied saying China is transparent and truthful.
On Monday the POTUS tweeted screenshots of the letter he to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
In the screenshotted letter Trump lists examples of the WHO's failures in managing the pandemic, which includes ignoring early reports of the virus emerging and having very close ties with China.
This is the letter sent to Dr. Tedros of the World Health Organization. It is self-explanatory! pic.twitter.com/pF2kzPUpDv— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 19, 2020
'It is clear the repeated missteps by you and your organization in responding to the pandemic have been extremely costly for the world. The only way forward for the World Health Organization is if it can actually demonstrate independence from China,' he wrote in the letter.
He also warned in the letter 'If the World Health Organization does not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days, I will make my temporary freeze of United States funding to the World Health Organization permanent and reconsider our membership in the organization.'
On Monday the WHO announced that an independent review of the international response to the pandemic would be launched as soon as possible with the organization receiving hefty amounts of funds from China.
The U.S. has contributed more than $400 million to the WHO in 2019, which makes about 15% of the organization's annual budget.
While this year, the country has already donated $58 million in assessed contributes fees to the WHO, as reported by several senior Trump administration officials last month about half of what it is required to pay for in 2020,
The U.S has traditionally donated hundreds of millions of dollars voluntarily each year to WHO aid programs to treat people in poor countries suffering from various diseases such as Polio, HIV, Hepatitis, Tuberculosis, Malaria, Ebola, etc
The United States permanently dropping this year would huge blow the WHO especially in dealing with the current Coronavirus pandemic which has infected more infected 4.75 million people worldwide and killed about 314,414 people internationally.
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