White House National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien defended President Trump’s decision to pull some $450 million of U.S. annual funding from the World Health Organization, but also vowed the “same amount of money” will instead be channeled to other health-based humanitarian operations around the world.
In an interview on CNN, Mr. O’Brien said the decision to reroute the money is warranted because the WHO has badly fumbled in the COVID-19 era by willingly helping China cover up responsibility for the global pandemic.
“We’re going to take that same money and make sure it gets to the Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross and the hospitals all over the world that need it, and doesn’t go through a corrupt international organization that’s controlled by the Chinese Communist Party,” the national security advisor said. “That’s for sure.”
It was not immediately clear whether Mr. O’Brien was referring to a specific administration plan for rerouting the funding or speaking only in broad terms.
By mentioning the Red Cross, he may have been referring to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), although the administration has so far not said whether it will increase the roughly $400 million in annual funding the United States government presently gives the organization — the leading international outfit for humanitarian assistance for people in nearly every one of the world’s various conflict zone.
A bigger question surrounds Mr. O’Brien’s mention of Doctors Without Borders, also known by its name in French, Médecins sans Frontières (MSF). While U.S. corporations and private individuals are known to donate to Doctors Without Borders, the entity operates as a nonprofit organization and is notorious for refusing money from governments — including the U.S. government — in order to avoid even the appearance of political conflicts.
After Mr. O’Brien made similar comments earlier in May, Doctors Without Borders sought to clarify that it would not be a good target for any rerouted U.S. government funds. “More than 90 percent of our funding comes from private donors. Our operations are carried out based solely on medical need and are devoid of any political, military or other agenda,” it said in a statement, according to Roll Call. “The World Health Organization serves a unique role through its mandate to act as a coordinating authority for global health issues. No other entity, including MSF, is mandated to serve this purpose.”
CNN did not ask Mr. O’Brien about the issue in Sunday’s interview, during which the national security advisor also said the Trump administration intends to take the nearly $450 million that the U.S. would have given to the WHO — a figure he stressed is far greater than the some $40 million China gives the WHO annually — and instead “make sure it gets to front-line health care workers, just like we’re doing with PEPFAR in Africa.”
He was referring to the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief, an organization that was created by the George W. Bush administration in 2003 to battle AIDS and HIV in Africa, and that the U.S. government has already channeled nearly $100 billion toward over the past 17 years. “We’re not doing it through the WHO,” Mr. O’Brien said. “We’re doing it as the United States of America.”
He suggest the very creation of PEPFAR by the Bush administration was driven at least in part by past WHO failures to respond to the AIDS crisis. “They have bungled things going all the way back to AIDS/HIV in Africa,” Mr. O’Brien said. “That’s why the United States has spent over the past 20 years $142 billion on public health, especially the PEPFAR program that’s literally saving the lives, with antiretroviral drugs, of millions of people in Africa.”
“The WHO isn’t saving lives for — for AIDS and HIV victims in Africa,” he added. “It’s the United States and our generous taxpayers who are saving those lives in Africa.”
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.
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