President Trump continued his attack on the World Health Organization late Wednesday, saying their main fault was advising against travel bans amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Speaking from the White House, Mr. Trump said he outsmarted the public health arm of the U.N. by deciding on Jan. 31 to forbid foreign nationals who’d been in China in the past 14 days from entering the U.S.
“They were angry that we did it,” he said of WHO. “It took them a long time to realize what was going [on].”
Mr. Trump said the lack of travel guidance had a devastating impact on places in Europe.
“You see what happened to Italy, you see what happened to Spain, you see what happened to France,” Mr. Trump said.
The president said he thinks the WHO didn’t realize how bad the epidemic would be. At the same time, he suggested there might have been something nefarious afoot, as he accuses the organization of being “China-centric.”
“Perhaps they knew,” he said.
WHO said it’s disappointed by Mr. Trump’s decision to freeze U.S. contributions.
The organization has faced criticism for not taking a harder line on China early on in the outbreak. But it’s considered the world’s lead organization for fighting diseases, often in developing nations or warn-torn places.
Democrats said the decision to withdraw funding in the middle of a pandemic is a mistake and will leave a vacuum that China will be happy to fill.
Mr. Trump said he thought highly of WHO, too, but “then you start to see all the mistakes.”
“I feel very badly about the World Health Organization. But it’s been a tool of China,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Trump has been reluctant to criticize Chinese President Xi Jinping, however, and even praised Mr. Xi’s performance in late January, as the virus flared up.
The president declined to comment on reports the coronavirus, while naturally occurring, might have escaped in a lab accident in Wuhan.
Mr. Trump said the U.S. will do a “very thorough examination” of what happened but declined to say more about possible intelligence. He also refused to say whether he brought it up with Mr. Xi.
“I don’t want to discuss what I talk to him about,” Mr. Trump said.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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