Trump’s pullout of the World Health Organization: Right Choice or Scapegoating?
Policy analysis by Jana Al Hassanieh, Staff Writer
July 25th, 2020
Amidst alarming spikes of COVID-19 infections and fatalities in U.S.A., President Donald Trump has decided to pullout the U.S.A. from the World Health Organization (WHO), consequently cutting out a yearly 450 million dollar funding to the UN agency critical part of promoting universal health coverage and protection from health emergencies.
Such a decision was highly condemned by many health specialists who are worried that it may harm the worldwide efforts and partnerships in COVID-19 drug trials and vaccine development. Worried and alarmed health specialists believe that such a move will put millions of lives at stake all over the globe. Cuts in funding would not only restrain global efforts in finding a vaccine for COVID-19, but further than that it would also delay polio eradication, childhood immunization, and many other international health assistance programs by WHO.
Why did Trump withdraw from the World Health Organization?
While being condemned for his administrations mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak nationally, as well as of the federal response, President Trump called out the World Health Organization for not holding China accountable for its arguable corruption and lack of transparency. Such a move is arguably strictly counterintuitive in light of Trump’s praise of China for their hard work, efforts, and transparency when handling with the coronavirus outbreak.
On April 7th, President Trump stated that the WHO “seems to be China-centric” and that they “missed a call”; claiming that the WHO “probably did know” about the severity of the pandemic. He added that even in the past years, all of WHO’s behaviors have been “biased towards China”. On May 19th, President Trump tweeted the letter that he had sent to Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, stating his concerns of the “grossly inaccurate or misleading” claims by the WHO and warning that the U.S. would cut funding and withdraw from the WHO unless the organization implemented the demanded reforms.
On May 29th, and after the World Health Organization refused President Trump’s “requested and greatly needed” reforms, Trump announced the withdrawal of the United States of America from the WHO. In his speech, Trump stated that despite U.S.A.’s much higher funding budget (450 million dollars every year) to the WHO, China, only funding 40 million dollars per year, has “total control over the World Health Organization”. On that note, the United States will be terminating the relationship with WHO and “redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs.” “The World needs answers from China on the virus. We must have transparency,” Trump went on. On July 6th, Trump’s administration notified the UN and the U.S. Congress of this official decision that will take effect on July 6th of 2021.
In the span of just one week after the official withdrawal (July 6th to July 13th), the coronavirus cases in the U.S.A. escalated from 2.9 million to 3.31 million confirmed cases and from 125.6k to 130.8k deaths as of writing. The current numbers as of publishing have increased dramatically further.
Trump’s scapegoating of WHO’s initial handling of the coronavirus outbreak in China’s Wuhan province is alarming. WHO’s worldwide database, staff, and health expertise cannot be found in any other organization that Trump may be thinking of diverting the funds to.
Ever since Trump became president, he has been relentlessly ending agreements, revoking policies, withdrawing from treaties, and consequently deflating the credibility of the ‘all-powerful’ and ‘ever-multilateral’ United States of America. Trump’s termination of America’s relationship with the World Health Organization means that the U.S. will no longer have a primary influence on global public health initiatives. Without accessing the membership of the WHO, the U.S.A. will be cut out of nearly all conversations and technical meetings by the organization.
Put simply, Trump’s withdrawal from the WHO was not a smart move. He should have stood with other allies requesting reform and investigation within the World Health Organization, instead of backing out.
Joe Biden, a 2020 candidate for President of the United States, tweeted on July 7th that on his first day as President he will “rejoin the World Health Organization and restore U.S. leadership on the world stage”.
But yes, the WHO is far from foolproof!
The WHO is accused of slow endorsement of face masks use for coronavirus and vigorous warning against travel restrictions. The WHO is even suspected of having cooperated with China in holding back information on true statistics and numbers of COVID-19 cases and fatalities in Wuhan.
However, the organization should have responded in alternative ways in various cases. Rather than conveying a false sense of security to the world, better risk communication should have taken place early on. Because investigations were still underway, the World Health Organization should have provided anticipatory precautions and safeguards until further confirmed evidence and findings were established. Yet until February 29, the WHO persisted to warn “against the application of travel or trade restrictions to countries experiencing COVID-19 outbreaks”.
After Trump’s official withdrawal from the WHO and at the Member State Briefing on the COVID-19 pandemic evaluation on July 9th, the WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros said: “My friends, make no mistake. The greatest threat we face now is not the virus itself. Rather, it is the lack of leadership and solidarity at the global and national levels.” He then asked, “How is it difficult for humans to unite and fight a common enemy that is killing people indiscriminately?”.
Once more, on July 13th, Tedros re-advocated for “global solidarity”; warning of “no return to the old normal for the foreseeable future” and requesting “science, solutions, and solidarity”.
But the actual question is: if the World Health Organization is constantly pleading for “global solidarity”, why doesn’t it reconsider Taiwan’s membership in it?
Taiwan’s Case
Taiwan, an island which China refuses to recognize sovereignty of, is being praised by countless countries for its proactive responses since the initial outbreak of COVID-19 and its containment of the spread of the virus within its borders.
On the other hand, China has profoundly lobbied the WHO to consider Taiwan as part of Chinese territory. At the behest of China, a Member State within the World Health Organization, the WHO does not recognize Taiwan as an independent state and discriminately excludes Taiwan from its technical meetings as it has been denying the island from observer status in the WHO since 2016.
In an interview with Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) from March 28th, the WHO senior advisor Dr. Bruce Aylward refused to answer a question on reconsidering Taiwan’s membership within the WHO and hung up the call. When RTHK called him back and asked on “what Taiwan has done so far in terms of containing the virus”, Dr. Aylward responded: “Well, we’ve already talked about China. And when you look across all the different areas of China, they’ve actually all done quite a good job.” This action was highly criticized by Taiwan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jaushieh Joseph Wu, who wrote on Twitter: “Wow, can’t even utter “Taiwan” in the WHO? You should set politics aside in dealing with a pandemic. FYI @WHO, 450+ news reports from 40+ countries so far positively covered #Taiwan’s handling of #COVID19. These reports do not mistake us as part of China & #TaiwanCanHelp. JW”
Lying around 100 miles east of mainland China, Taiwan was expected to record many COVID-19 cases and mortalities. Yet, to date, due to Taiwan’s early preparedness and professional healthcare system, it has only recorded 458 confirmed COVID-19 cases, 440 of which are recovered, and 7 deaths as of publishing.
Taiwan’s Vice President Chen Chien-jen, a renowned epidemiologist who successfully led Taiwan’s Ministry of Health during the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak, has made rapid proactive actions dealing with the coronavirus outbreak. His prompt actions included, but were not limited to, daily production of surgical masks, requesting face masks use by all Taiwanese, providing needed medical supplies in hospitals and healthcare centers, contact tracing, social distancing, and imposing quarantine to incoming travelers and those who had close contact with COVD-19 patients. Taiwan is even donating masks and sharing its experience with other countries in need of help and assistance. All of these actions during the COVID-19 crisis were done without any of WHO’s assistance, similar to the case during the SARS 2013 outbreak.
So why doesn’t the World Health Organization put the China-Taiwan political commotion aside when dealing with a pandemic? How can the WHO ask for global solidarity when it is acting with Taiwan conflictingly?