The Democratic members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee are urging President Trump to restore funding to the World Health Organization, saying the funding freeze was an attempt to shift blame away from the administration’s “failed response” to the coronavirus pandemic within its borders.
Led by committee Chair Eliot Engel, New York Democrat, 26 members argued that the missteps the United Nations-backed organization may have made in its response to the coronavirus pandemic does not warrant a funding freeze at the height of the crisis.
“Halting funding to the WHO at this time is like cutting funding to the fire department in the middle of a blaze,” the members wrote in a Thursday letter addressed to Mr. Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and John Barsa, acting administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development.
“Retreating from global health institutions at this time will only hinder our ability to fight the coronavirus, thus putting our national security and American lives at risk,” they continued.
Last week, Mr. Trump announced he would be freezing hundreds of millions of dollars in annual payments to WHO while U.S. officials review its role in “mismanaging” the coronavirus crisis.
Global leaders and U.N. officials criticized the move and many countries said they were not ready to follow Washington’s lead in the middle of a pandemic that has now infected more than 2.6 million people worldwide.
The lawmakers on Thursday called Mr. Trump’s move “profoundly misguided and appears to be an effort to scapegoat the WHO in order to deflect attention from your administration’s mismanaged and politicized response to the pandemic.”
Mr. Trump said in his announcement the U.S. contributes up to $400 million while countries such as China, where the outbreak began, contribute just a fraction of that. WHO is financed through both assessed and voluntary contributions, according to the agency’s website.
The U.S. assessed contribution for 2020 is $120 million, representing 22% of WHO’s core budget for the year, according to data from USAID. In 2018, the U.S.’s voluntary budget was nearly double its assessed contribution at $220 million.
While assessed contributions have not yet been allocated in full as financial payments tend to be doled out over time, the executive branch has more control over voluntary contributions so it is unlikely the administration would have to notify Congress to pull this funding.
WHO, based in Switzerland, is considered the world leader in public health emergencies, such as the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo that has been nearly stamped out amid violent conditions.
Critics of WHO say the agency was slow to recognize the severity of the coronavirus threat, repeatedly gave out misleading information and failed to press China’s leaders to be more transparent about the origins and early days of the outbreak.
But the group of lawmakers argued that mistakes made by the agency “do not justify your halt in funding; nor do they excuse the serious failures of your administration in confronting this pandemic.”
“We urge you in the strongest possible terms to immediately restore funding for the WHO and take all other necessary steps to confront this pandemic,” the wrote.
• Lauren Toms can be reached at lmeier@washingtontimes.com.
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