The World Health Organization on Wednesday disputed President Trump’s criticism that it was too pro-China and warned bluntly that “politicizing” the COVID-19 pandemic will divide nations and result in “many more body bags.”
The president, joined by a growing number of Republicans on Capitol Hill, has turned his sights on the public health arm of the United Nations over what it knew, when it knew it and how it dealt with Beijing as the novel coronavirus emerged in Wuhan, China, in December and spread around the globe.
Mr. Trump tweeted this week that WHO officials “blew it” by taking a conciliatory stance toward the Chinese government. He said WHO waited too long to call the outbreak a pandemic and that he was considering a freeze or cut in U.S. financial support.
The U.S. government provided nearly 15% of WHO’s $5.6 billion budget for 2018 and 2019 — $237 million through assessments and $656 million in voluntary payments, according to Science magazine.
WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus, the Ethiopian microbiologist who has been a prime target of U.S. anger, told reporters in a virtual press conference Wednesday that the world cannot afford to be divided at this moment and suggested that Mr. Trump’s threats were misguided and dangerous.
“For now, the focus should be on fighting this virus,” said Mr. Tedros, the first non-medical doctor to head WHO. He added that finger-pointing and audits can wait until after the pandemic ends.
Asked about Mr. Trump’s remarks, he said, “If you want to have many more body bags, then you do it. If you don’t want many more body bags, then you refrain from politicizing it. My short message is please quarantine politicizing COVID.”
Critics say WHO officials, Mr. Tedros in particular, have been far too lenient with China and given effusive praise for Beijing’s cooperation despite mounting questions about the early days of the outbreak and roadblocks for foreign researchers desperate for more information about the new virus.
Mr. Trump and other critics say WHO took too long to declare a pandemic and originally criticized travel bans such as the one the U.S. imposed on China to contain the spread of the virus.
Chinese leaders “used the WHO to mislead the world,” Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Republican, said in a Tuesday night statement backing Mr. Trump’s demand for a review of funding. “The organization’s leadership is either complicit or dangerously incompetent.”
Mr. Trump raised the issue again in his Wednesday White House briefing, this time armed with figures on U.S. and Chinese payments to the WHO in recent years and complaining the U.S. had not been treated fairly.
“I think they have to get their priorities right,” Mr. Trump said, adding later he was considering “holding back” U.S. contributions while the administration studied the issue.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the briefing that “now is not a time for retribution,” but added China had a “special obligation” to be transparent as the source of the virus and that U.S. officials were evaluating the country’s payments to the WHO and the agency’s effectiveness. He declined to answer a question on whether the agency needed new leadership.
WHO officials have said little publicly about widespread doubts that China has not been frank about its number of cases and number of fatalities since the virus emerged late last year. U.S. intelligence analysts have reportedly concluded that the numbers are far higher than Beijing has acknowledged.
The critics have also noted again what they see as WHO’s shabby treatment of Taiwan, which is sidelined from many critical debates at Beijing’s insistence. As a result, WHO did not heed Taiwan’s warnings about the dangers of the coronavirus early this year.
Keeping China happy
WHO supporters say a diplomatic approach is needed in the teeth of a global crisis and that calling out China now would be counterproductive.
Dr. Bruce Aylward, a Canadian physician and senior adviser to Mr. Tedros, told reporters Wednesday that it “was absolutely critical in the early part of this outbreak to have full access to everything possible, to get on the ground and work with the Chinese to understand this.”
“This is what we did with every other hard-hit country like Spain and had nothing to do with China specifically,” he said.
Dr. Hans Kluge, the WHO’s regional director for Europe, rejected Mr. Trump’s suggestion to cut funding in the “acute phase of a pandemic.”
Mr. Tedros said Mr. Trump is “playing with fire.”
“When there are cracks at national level and global level, that’s when the virus succeeds,” he said. “For God’s sake, we have lost more than 60,000 citizens of the world.”
Mr. Trump pulled no punches Tuesday when he tweeted that WHO “really blew it.”
“For some reason, [WTO is] funded largely by the United States, yet very China centric. We will be giving that a good look.” The coronavirus has infected more than 1.4 million people worldwide and killed over 85,000.
Analysts said it would be difficult for Mr. Trump to unilaterally withdraw congressionally approved funds from WHO but some discretionary payments could be slashed.
Despite increasing concerns about how China handled the outbreak in the early days, it was not clear how much international support Mr. Trump’s threats would gain.
China, under President Xi Jinping, has worked assiduously to increase Beijing’s clout at WHO and other key international bodies in recent years. Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso joked last week that the agency should be renamed the “Chinese Health Organization.”
French President Emmanuel Macron spoke by phone with Mr. Tedros on Wednesday in a show of support. A French official told the Reuters news agency that Mr. Macron “reaffirmed his trust, his support for the institution and refuses to see it locked into a war between China and the USA.”
An editorial Wednesday in the Chinese state-controlled Global Times accused Mr. Trump and other U.S. officials of trying to shift blame for their own failings in dealing with the crisis.
“The U.S. government and pro-government members in Congress have an inescapable responsibility for underestimating the coronavirus,” the editorial said.
“They have botched the U.S. epidemic fight, so they urgently need to find a scapegoat to avoid being remembered as a stain in history. They first passed the buck to China, now the WHO.”
Stephen Morrison director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the UN health agency was in danger of being caught in the cross-fire as two giants clash.
“This is WHO getting caught in middle of a worsening U.S.-China confrontation and an increased effort by Washington to deflect attention away from Trump, and WHO is getting caught in the middle,” he said in a briefing Wednesday.
The WHO, he added, “has to navigate a complicated planetary environment with a very weak hand. It’s on its own. It would have had no backing from the U.S. or other powerful states if it had chosen to be confrontational with China at those key moments. It would have simply had its access terminated.”
Mr. Tedros said his focus is on saving lives, and “we don’t do politics in the WHO.” He also played down the prospect of a U.S. funding cut.
“My belief is that it will continue that way,” he said. “That’s what I believe. The U.S. will continue to contribute its share. Other countries will do the same.”
• Tom Howell Jr. contributed to this report.
• Lauren Toms can be reached at lmeier@washingtontimes.com.
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