Trump announces WHO funding is suspended and blames organization for coronavirus deaths – The Independent, Independent
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The United States is suspending funding to the World Health Organization while the Trump administration studies what Donald Trump called the group’s “disastrous” role in “covering up” the outbreak of the coronavirus in China , the president has announced.
“The reality is the WHO failed to obtain, vet and share information in a timely fashion,” Mr Trump said. “The WHO failed in its basic duty and must be held accountable.”
“Tremendous amounts of time” were “lost” due to what Mr Trump called the WHO’s slowness. He is being accused of ignoring warnings from his own intelligence agencies of the virus’s severity, and his own plodding an ineffective response.
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Mr Trump accused the WHO on “opposing travel bans” and repeating Chinese government “propaganda” that the virus could not be transferred from person to person.
The US leader issues a mild threat to withdraw from the organization, which he rightly says is largely dependent on American monies, saying, “we’ll have no choice but to do that”, unless the group changes its actions .
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