The Trump Administration & the World Health Organization

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) core purpose within the United Nations’ (UN) structure is to direct and coordinate international health. Their main areas of work include health systems and health through the life-course, non-communicable, and communicable diseases plus many more. As they coordinate the activities of governments and collaborators, including bilateral and multilateral bodies, funds and foundations, civil society organizations, and the private sector, they offer support to a multitude of countries. Ultimately, they accomplish health targets by promoting national policies and strategies for health.

With the latest Coronavirus outbreak, President Trump has begun to condemn WHO. While threatening to leave the organization, the current president of the United States blames WHO for allowing the pandemic to get this severe.

At first, the president was commending China and WHO on their resilient efforts to “contain the virus” (referencing Covid-19). However, this optimistic tone did not last long. A few weeks later, President Trump stated that the U.S. funding of WHO would soon come to a halt unless it undertook “substantive improvements” within 30 days in April 2020. Needless to say, Trump did not feel as though improvements were made. In late May of 2020, he announced the termination of the U.S.’s relationship with the WHO and stated that the funds could be directed to “other global public health charities.”

The question is, why does Trump want to pull out of WHO so desperately? The reason being: he feels as though it is too focused on China.

“The W.H.O. really blew it,” Trump said in a Twitter post, “For some reason, funded largely by the United States, yet very China centric. We will be giving that a good look. Fortunately I rejected their advice on keeping our borders open to China early on. Why did they give us such a faulty recommendation?”

This tweet displays how Trump believes, despite the fact that America has contributed so much, WHO is very unreliable for them. Responses from the Senate suggests that Trump is not alone with his opinions. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman James E. Risch (R-Idaho) accused WHO of being a “political puppet” of China and said WHO’s failure to report the accurate number of cases “hindered the world’s ability to blunt the spread of this pandemic.”

Another point made by Trump was when he said that WHO “Called it wrong. They missed the call”. Although he did not elaborate on what this meant, it can be inferred he was referring to the late timing made by WHO to alert the world of the coronavirus. This undeniably is an attempt by the president for political gain. He is arguing that he was not able to act quickly, because the world health leaders were not quick themselves. This, however, is very deceptive because, as far back as January, his trade advisor and health secretary warned him about the danger of Covid-19.

Additionally, once the Trump administration was alerted of the pandemic, it wasn’t taken very seriously. On the same day that WHO announced the pandemic, Trump stated, “I think we’re going to get through it very well” in order not to create panic within the American society. He later confessed to “downplaying” the virus.

If America was to pull out of WHO, what would this mean for the rest of its members? Considering that the U.S. is the largest donor to WHO, backing out would cause the organization to lose significant funding. In the two-year funding cycle of 2018 to 2019, it gave $893 million, $656 million was voluntary, in the form of donations. The U.S. donations made up 14.7% of all global contributions given voluntarily. WHO has been struggling with budget issues lately and Trump’s order further accelerates this problem.

Professor Bauman says, “It impacts every WHO Collaborating Centre, and every country, because our capacity to help — particularly in low-income countries, and our neighboring countries, will be impacted.”

More than 67% of funds are directed towards Africa and the Middle East, 26% towards eradicating polio, 12% towards increasing access to essential health and nutrition services, and 9% going towards vaccine-preventable diseases.

Personally, I think the decision to pull out of WHO is utterly ridiculous. President Trump has proven time and time again he would do anything to deflect the blame off himself, and this case is no different. If he really believed that WHO was so China-oriented, why didn’t he pressure them to be more aggressive towards China? The truth is, he didn’t even know himself. He even applauded China on their efforts. Criticizing an organization when you yourself have done the same things is blatantly hypocritical. He is more focused on finding blame instead of the disastrous consequence: hundreds of thousands of American lives. It is also extremely selfish to pull out of WHO when many struggling countries rely on this funding. This displays to other countries that America is untrustworthy with their commitment to an organization. The president must stop focusing on himself in order to realize how detrimental his actions are to the rest of the world.

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Written by Naomi Kassahun.