Trump is halting U.S. funding of WHO after previous administrations' 'benign neglect' policy allowed Beijing to mislead the organization, with deadly consequences.
On Monday evening, Trump made it clear the era of Washington's indifference to the WHO is over. He announced that U.S. funding of the organization will stop for a period of 60 to 90 days"while a review is conducted to assess the WHO's role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.
In industry after industry—including, we now learn, the pharmaceutical and medical equipment industry— large companies shifted their supply chains out of the United States and into China, lured by the extraordinarily plentiful and cheap labor available there. Entire industries were hollowed out, and in the Rust Belt in particular, entire towns were devastated.
Obama's priority vis-a-vis Beijing was climate change. China's explosive economic growth had made it the world's largest emitter of CO2 into the atmosphere. If the Paris accord were to have any credibility, he had to have Beijing as a signatory. On April 1, 2016, he got his wish, when Beijing and Washington issued a joint statement saying they would both join the accord.
China's President XI Jinping and US President Barack Obama hold a meeting during an official State Visit at the White House September 25, 2015 in Washington, DC.The U.S. and its allies would allow Chinese representatives—or allies of Beijing, like Tedros—to run organizations such as the WHO, the International Civil Aviation Organization, the International Telecommunication Union, the Food and Agricultural Organization, and the U.N. Industrial Development Organization.
The diplomatic fallout is just beginning. The cessation of funding, even if temporary, will get the WHO's attention. The U.S. government's annual contribution to the WHO is 22 percent of the total: more than double Beijing's contribution. When you add in the massive amounts of money that philanthropic organizations like the Gates Foundation and pharmaceutical companies throw in—a sum far greater than Washington's donation—the overall U.S.
He'll get no argument from Trump administration officials, who hope they will still be around in 2022. In late January, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo—said by a White House official to be"fed up" with China—named career foreign service officer Mark Lambert to a newly created position: a special envoy whose job it is to counter China's malign influence at the U.N. and other international agencies. He'll have help.
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