Amer Ishaq Soharwardi
Bureau Chief Washington DC
In between of the worst Health Crises in the history of United States after threatening to suspend the $400 million in annual US contributions and then announcing a withdrawal, the Trump administration has formally sent a notice to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The withdrawal of the key WHO founding member is effective in one year – July 6, 2021. This comes today as more than three million Americans are confirmed with deadly COVID 19 more than 130,000 thousand lost their lives as pandemic is spreading in east coast, central region and west coast unstopping.
This decision from President Trump was instantly reacted. Trump’s 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 rejoin the WHO and restore our leadership on the world stage,” Biden wrote on Twitter. While WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus responded to the news with a one-word tweet “Together!” as he linked to a discussion by US health experts on how leaving the global body could impede efforts to prevent future pandemics.
The one-year withdrawal notice is in line with conditions set when the WHO was set up in 1948, the United States can leave within one year but must meet its remaining assessed financial obligations, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. The Trump administration has said that the WHO ignored early signs of human-to-human transmission in China, including warnings from Taiwan – which, due to Beijing’s pressure, is not part of the UN body.
While many public health advocates share some criticism of the WHO, they question what other options the world body had other than to work with China, where Covid-19 was first detected late last year in the city of Wuhan. Blaming China for the coronavirus, Trump, a frequent critic of the UN, said the United States would redirect funding “to other worldwide and deserving, urgent, global public health needs.”
But that is just the tip of the iceberg the Trump administration firmly believes 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 the United States would redirect funding “to other worldwide and deserving, urgent, global public health needs.”.
Critics say that the failure on decision making by the Trump administration on COVID 19 , poor response, state of negation and playing a big blame game led the administration to believe that WHO is a useless organization while some says that this decision has no binding as if after November Biden wins then this decision as per his tweet can be reverted.
They say that this is another step to keep everyone focused on what Trump is doing rather than how is he doing it.
