President Trump Shocks World By Halting Funding To WHO

President Trump has announced that the United States of America will no longer fund the World Health Organization amidst the Covid-19 pandemic.

President Trump blames  WHO for not acting swiftly when the Coronavirus first emerged in China and for failing to manage the spread of the virus in due time. He threatened to stop the funding to the WHO last week.

How President Trump’s decision will affect the WHO and the fight against Covid-19.

WHO is a global agency which gets its funding from donors, international organizations, member states, and its parent organization.

Each member state is expected to make contributions to be the party of the organization. The contributions are known as assessed contributions which are calculated based on a country’s population and wealth.

The assessed contributions makeup just a quarter of WHO funding but are seen as very important especially during this time when the world has been invaded by a ferocious pandemic.

The rest of the funding, also known as voluntary contributions come from partners and voluntary donations by member states.

In addition to its assessed contributions which totaled  237 million dollars, the US is also the largest donor to the WHO, giving up to 656 million dollars between 2018 and 2019. The US makes up 14.67 percent of the voluntary contributions globally.

The other biggest donors are Bill and Belinda’s Foundations owned by American billionaire Bill Gates, the UK, Germany, Japan, and China.

From these data, it means that the US has a great influence on the WHO not only in terms of assessed and voluntary contributions but also in terms of political capabilities.

Earlier, the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union was based on the fact that the US had a great influence on the WHO prompting some member countries to leave the agency for years.

The same situation is seen between the US and China on who influences WHO the most owing to the power and wealth China has gained in recent days. Experts and critics think that China is having more influence in WHO which is making the US feel out-casted.

However, Trump says WHO has been slow to react to the crisis that is why it has wreaked havoc to the lives of humans as well as the global economy.

“Had the WHO done its job to get medical experts into China to objectively assess the situation on the ground and to call out China’s lack of transparency, the outbreak could have been contained at its source with very little death,” he argued.

The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made it point-blank that the US is halting the funding due to China’s involvement in the WHO.

In response to these accusations, the WHO urged the world including the US and China to unite during this time and fight the pandemic together.

“The United States and China should come together and fight this dangerous enemy,” said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.