Trump freezes all US funding to World Health Organization amidst the projected global turning point

Policy Analysis by Sarah El-Abd, Editor-in-Chief

April 15th, 2020

"The focus of all political parties should be to save their people. Please don't politicise this virus," said Tedros, the Chief of the World Health Organization, earlier this week at the Geneva Headquarters during a press briefing firmly addressed towards the world leaders. 

Yet, in the early hours of April 15th, local time, Trump officially placed a freeze on all US funding to the WHO thus critically halting all global effort of containment and recovery.

Where did this ‘sudden’ freeze come from?

Last week the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, noted in line with Trump’s claim of WHO ineffectiveness and unresponsiveness that "Organisations have to work. They have to deliver the outcomes for which they're intended,", announcing that the US was officially considering re-evaluating its voluntary funding commitments to the WHO.  This was far from an out of the blue, irrational decision by the Trump Administration, as many Trump critics continue to argue for. 

The cuts are a piece of a bigger puzzle – part of a bigger web Trump is devoted to dismantling. At the core here lies the Trump Administrations proposals for the US 2020-2021 budget, which includes a cut of over $3 billion USD in global health programs. However, when these proposals first emerged, they were quickly disregarded not only by US politicians but by the public itself too, as they were categorized as merely a series of Trump’s unrealistic foreign policy goals that will never make it out of the White House oval office. Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee noted on the proposal for the budget that “Like the President’s previous budgets, this year’s request is a waste of the paper it’s printed on,” further echoing the joke of the matter and stating that “proposing such reckless cuts to our critical foreign policy tools isn’t a serious proposal.”. 

But here we are. Amongst the various things Americans have called off as not being serious – from Trump’s proposals to his 2016 presidential campaign – he has managed to prove against the odds of his critics. 

The proposal by Trump back in February, amidst the spark of the pandemic, would have included cutting WHO funding by circa 50%. This was with a greater intent and purpose of cutting an estimate of 21% from the federal budget for foreign aid. 

However, although Trump’s April 15 decision does not make permanent nor interim cuts, it has placed critical freezes in an even more critical time for the WHO, showing the inhumane and politically narcissistic face of the administration. Nevertheless, there is an argument to be made that Trump is not the big volunteer he’s making himself out to be. The US may be of the most donating and funding members of the WHO, yet these funds contributed go into specific projects and are tied to them as such.   

This is not an effort to halt Covid-19 response, it is a matter of ‘it’s our way or the highway’. Do as the US dictates, or they will threaten with economic coercion and coercive diplomacy. 

Trump and his administration have received fierce criticism at home and from abroad as a result of their unjustifiable inadequate response to Covid-19, which the President even once entirely dismissed as a hoax. Yet it seems Trump is not just planning on standing and taking the criticism, he is intending on shift blaming it, even if it will cost the lives and economics of the world.

Accusing the WHO of pushing “China’s misinformation about the virus”, all while claiming that the organization was failing and “severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.” are amongst the many attacks on the WHO by Trump in the past weeks. The core catalysts for these attacks stems from Trump’s belief that the WHO has become, or arguably long been, “China Centric”. Trump’s argument here is that China has been getting more for their buck. While the US spent almost $500 million in 2019 for WHO funding, China spent $42 million, and according to Trump the US has received less support all while China is being hailed as a grand survivor and conqueror of Covid-19 by the WHO. 

The Trump grievances go beyond his China rhetoric and stretch to chief Tedros himself. According to Trump, Tedros had asked him to keep his borders open, and seeing as neither Tedros nor the WHO had placed any travel restrictions in place this was a clear sign of the many “disastrous decisions” Trump noted. 

“He wanted me to keep the borders open. I close the borders despite him, and that was a hard decision to make at the time. We were all together. We made a decision against the World Health Organization." President Trump, April 9th. 

Nevertheless, it must be well noted that the WHO cannot generally call for travel bans under the rights and responsibilities granted to it under international law, according to Lawrence Gostin – the director of the WHO center on global health law. “To blame the WHO for acting on the basis of international law and science in ways that are entirely consistent with what WHO practices have been for decades is the height of hypocrisy,” he said.

The fall of US foreign policy – the snowball is not stopping anytime soon

From his insistence to referring to Covid-19 as the “Chinese virus” brings back many historic memories of the ‘Spanish flu’ and its historical depiction as a failure of Spain, which remains untrue, to his insistence on buying the rights to the vaccine in the works in Germany – Trump is on a path to self destruction. 

A photo of President Trump’s notes shows where “Corona” is crossed out and replaced with “Chinese” Virus as he speaks with his coronavirus task force on March 19. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

While the Chinese already on bad terms with the US, the European Union have joined the party. With the various economic coercions placed upon the EU by Trump, it is not surprising to find an even further outraged 

European Union as Trump declares his intentions on becoming the sole acquirer to a Covid-19 vaccine being developed in Germany in his usual monopoly foreign policy game. The EU often plays along with these games, after all the casualties of disrupting the relationships are too great for the Union to withstand. Yet, as Trump imposed his EU travel ban without any consultation, nor scientific justification, the nationalistic self-interest compounded to spikes the EU-US relations have not witnessed in decades. 

Thanks to Trump, not only is America’s reputation as a “safe, trustworthy, competent international leader and partner” being tarnished by the count of his tweets and press briefings, but more critically – thanks to Trump you may have to stay in self-isolation for months more. You may find yourself in unemployment soon, if you don’t already. You may be of the half a billion people predicted to fall into poverty from the byproducts of the pandemic.

We now more than ever need to turn away from the love of the unipolar capitalist world that provides many with security and peace, but guarantees global danger, jeopardy, and paralysis the moment the US acts against the will and morals of the global order. “The WHO’s budget is around the equivalent of a large US hospital, which is utterly incommensurate with its global responsibilities,” according to Georgetown University professor Lawrence Gostin, a public health law expert, and the world (including the US) needs to in solidarity boost the capabilities of the WHO as it continues to strive to fight Covid-19 across the globe.

 The WHO has yet to respond publicly to the US April 15 freeze as of publishing.