Trump accuses WHO of bias towards China, threatens to stop funding world body

The President of the United States of America, Donald Trump has accused the World Health Organisation (WHO) of bias towards China and performing badly in the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump therefore threatened to put a “hold” on funds for WHO, saying that it “missed the call” on the coronavirus pandemic, which has so far killed more than 82,000 people around the world.

Trump said on Tuesday that the WHO “called it wrong” on the virus and the UN organisation was “very China-centric” in its approach, suggesting the agency had gone along with Beijing’s efforts months ago to minimise the severity of the outbreak.

“The WHO really blew it,” Trump said in a Twitter post.

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Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of Trump, vowed there would not be any funding for the WHO in the next Senate appropriations bill.

“I’m in charge of the appropriations subcommittee. I’m not going to support funding the WHO under its current leadership. They’ve been deceptive, they’ve been slow, and they’ve been Chinese apologists,” Graham said in an interview with Fox News.

However, WHO in its response rejected the US president’s critique saying it is ‘showing the strength’ of the international health system.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric rejected the criticism of the UN agency by Trump.

“For the Secretary General [Antonio Guterres] it is clear that WHO, under the leadership of Dr Tedros, has done tremendous work on COVID in supporting countries with millions of pieces of equipment being shipped out, on helping countries with training, on providing global guidelines. WHO is showing the strength of the international health system,” he told reporters.

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