Trump withdrawing WHO funding, I can kind of see his point.....

[MrsTumbletap]

So Trump has announced that he is withdrawing the 400-500 million dollars America gives to the WHO after the way they have dealt with the outbreak and how they didn't investigate China's statements about it not being spread person to person.

Now I am not a Trump fan, I think the man is intolerable, but........I can see his point here. The WHO have not handled this well, they didn't investigate how it spread, they said international travel was fine. Which has now affected the whole world.

If every country used their WHO donations and poured it in to their health services at this urgent time, it would make more sense wouldn't it?

What are the WHO actually doing right now? Countries are dealing with it on their own, why do we need a collective body of people to make decisions that need billions? Google isn't showing an answer, the WHO website doesn't show what they are doing right now.

The WHO does not have an intelligence service to tell them when countries are lying

It is just an organisation that deals with health and epidemics

If the lies are well-prepared, of course they'll be taken in

However, Trump ignored intelligence warnings about danger from sloppy practices at the Wuhan research lab

He was warned again last year by the State Dept, but ignored it all - because the USA was trying to negotiate a trade deal with China

(2018) State Department cables warned of safety issues at Wuhan lab.....
which was conducting risky studies on coronaviruses from bats.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?

In January 2018, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing took the unusual step of repeatedly sending U.S. science diplomats to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)
.....
What the U.S. officials learned during their visits concerned them so much that
they dispatched two diplomatic cables categorized as Sensitive But Unclassified
back to Washington.

The cables warned about safety and management weaknesses at the WIV lab and proposed more attention and help.

The first cable, which I obtained, also
warns that the lab’s work on bat coronaviruses and their potential human transmission represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic.

Trump's first mistake in the COVID crisis was before COVID even existed:

He abolished the White House Pandemic Office - because it was set up by Obama, whom he hates

That's how Trump governs, by irresponsible impulse, spite and revenge,
then if it looks bad, denies what he did:

Yahoo Finance@YahooFinance

Highlight:
"You did disband the White House pandemic office... what responsibility do you take to that?"

President Trump:
"I just think it's a nasty question... You say we did that. I don't know anything about that."

Maybe just maybe if we didn't give the WHO 17 billion a year our country could have Universal Healthcare.

£17 billion a year?! Who told you that?

$17 billion sounds like a lot but consider the yearly health expenditure for the USA is $3.5 trillion. If you somehow can't get universal health care for $3.5 trillion, an extra $17 billion isn't going to make or break things.

However I sort of agree with OP, but don't agree with trump as he is just saying any old thing to deflect from himself - he isn't making any good points. I think we should discuss this issue of the WHOs competence/possible corruption without bringing Trump in to it.

I fail to understand how anyone can agree with Trump about anything to be honest

I think he is a prat too, but I do get very impatient with people whose mindset is basically "I dislike this person so I am going to automatically disagree with everything they say without even thinking for myself."

I don't think defunding the WHO completely is the answer but Trump does, for once, happen to be correct when he points out the WHO's failings. They have cocked up big-time over this pandemic (and so has Trump, let's be fair!)

Trump is psychotic. I can't believe anyone would see anything from his viewpoint. Just listen to him, look at him. He's deranged and dangerous!

If countries don’t need the WHO then local health services don’t need the National one. And villages don’t need funding from the county.

Think about the logic you’re suggesting here. More people, more funding, more ideas, more countries all working together is the way we get through this

Can you name one thing that Trump has done as President that is unconstitutional or illegal?

I am anti-Trump. However, I completely support his actions here. The WHO are a corrupt organisation who pander to China.

I agree Trump wants change at the top of WHO.

There should be scrutiny of the travel advice given early on. I can’t find this easily now but we were given WHO guidance at work back in early March and the first two pages were all about not stigmatising others instead of actual useful health advice.

Change at the top of WHO probably a good thing after this debacle.

Am so relieved to see balance on this thread. I cannot stand Trump but that does not mean so have to be automatically against everything he says dnd firs, and like others I agree that the WHO needs radical overhaul at the very least.

I have had a quick look and it looks like the USA (government not private donations) give around $900 million dollars not $17 billion. Does anyone have the actual figures?

Rather than hitting the WHO with a big stick I’d rather Trump together with the rest of the world slap trade taxes on China to help pay for all this as it was & is their fault.

@Leaannb you realise the US gives much less foreign aid than many other countries by capita. It's the internal disparity that the US should focus on. The huge tax breaks for the rich, the terrible health service etc

The WHO remind me of FIFA. Corruption corruption corruption...

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I have had a quick look and it looks like the USA (government not private donations) give around $900 million dollars not $17 billion. Does anyone have the actual figures?

WHO works on biennial budgets. In 2018-19 they contributed $893M, so $446.5M a year.

open.who.int/2018-19/contributors/contributor

Couple of interesting articles:

www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/15/834666123/trump-and-who-how-much-does-the-u-s-give-whats-the-impact-of-a-halt-in-funding

www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/04/08/which-countries-are-the-biggest-financial-contributors-to-the-world-health-organization-infographic/