US withdrawal from WHO
President Donald Trump on Tuesday formally started the withdrawal of us from the planet Health Organization, making good on threats to deprive the UN body of its top funding source over its response to the coronavirus.Public health advocates and Trump’s political opponents voiced outrage at the departure from the Geneva-based body, which leads the worldwide fight on maladies from polio to measles to psychological state — also as COVID-19, at a time when cases have again been rising around the world.
After threatening to suspend the $400 million in annual US contributions then announcing a withdrawal, the Trump administration has formally sent a notice to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a State Department spokesperson said.
The withdrawal of the key WHO founding member is effective in one year — July 6, 2021. Joe Biden, Trump’s presumptive Democratic opponent in November elections, vowed he would immediately end the pullout if he won the White House.
“Americans are safer when America is engaged in strengthening global health. On my first day as President, I will be able to rejoin the WHO and restore our leadership on the planet stage,” Biden wrote on Twitter.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus skilled the news with a one-word tweet — “Together!” — as he linked to a discussion by US health experts on how leaving the worldwide body could impede efforts to stop future pandemics.
In line with conditions set when the WHO was found out in 1948, we can leave within one year but must meet its remaining assessed financial obligations, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
In late May, Trump said that China exerted “total control” over the WHO and accused the UN body led by Tedros, an Ethiopian doctor and diplomat, of failing to implement reforms.
Blaming China for the coronavirus, Trump, a frequent critic of the UN, said us would redirect funding “to other worldwide and deserving, urgent, global public health needs.”
Democratic lawmakers have accused Trump of seeking to deflect criticism from his handling of the pandemic within us, which has suffered far and away from the very best price of any nation despite the president’s stated hope that the virus will disappear.
“To call Trump’s response to COVID chaotic and incoherent doesn’t roll in the hay justice,” said Senator Robert Menendez, the highest Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee.
“This won’t protect American lives or interests — it leaves Americans sick and America alone,” he said.
Representative Ami Bera, himself a physician, said that we and World Health Organization had worked “hand in hand” to eradicate smallpox and nearly defeat polio.
“Our cases are increasing,” Bera said of COVID-19. “If the WHO is to blame: why has the US been left behind while many countries from South Korea to New Zealand to Vietnam to Germany return to normal?”
Even a number of Trump’s Republican allies had voiced hope that he was exerting pressure instead of making a final judgment to abandon the planet Health Organization.
The investigative news outlet ProPublica reported last month that the majority of Trump’s aides were blindsided by the WHO withdrawal announcement, which he made during an appearance about China.
The Trump administration has said that the WHO ignored early signs of human-to-human transmission in China, including warnings from Taiwan — which, thanks to Beijing’s pressure, isn't a part of the UN body.
While many public health advocates share some criticism of the WHO, they question what other options the planet body had aside from to figure with China, where COVID-19 was first detected late last year within the city of Wuhan.
The anti-poverty campaign ONE said to us should work to reform, not abandon, the WHO.
“Withdrawing from the planet Health Organization amidst an unprecedented global pandemic is an astounding action that puts the security of all Americans the planet in danger,” it said.
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