President Donald Trump has formally started the withdrawal of the United States from the World Health Organization, making good on threats over the UN body’s response to the coronavirus, officials said Tuesday.
The United States is the largest financial contributor to the WHO — which leads the fight on global maladies from polio to measles to mental health — but it has increasingly been in Trump’s crosshairs as the coronavirus takes a heavy toll.
After threatening to suspend the $400 million in annual US contributions and then announcing a withdrawal, Trump has formally informed UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that he has started the US pullout, a State Department spokesperson said.
“This won’t protect American lives or interests — it leaves Americans sick & America alone,” he said.
Trump has accused the World Health Organization of bias toward China, saying it ignored early signs of human-to-human transmission of the deadly virus.
While many public health advocates share some criticism of the WHO, they question what other powers the world body had other than to work with China, where COVID-19 was first detected late last year.
Critics say Trump is seeking to deflect criticism from his own handling of the pandemic in the United States, which has suffered by far the highest death toll of any nation.
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