Doubtless, the UN is still smarting from President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of US funding of the World Health Organisation because Trump said the US contribution was not fair.
Trump has also expressed frustration that the US pays a disproportionate share of the WHO’s operational budget in comparison to China. The US is required to cover 22% of overall mandatory contributions, while China is expected to cover 12% in 2020-21, even though it has a population of 1.4 billion people and a GDP of $13.6 trillion.
Trump is now unhappy with Helen Clark’s appointment as co-chair of the WHO’s Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPR) along with the former president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
The World Health Organization has appointed former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, who criticized the U.S. withdrawal from the WHO as “foolish,” to lead the embattled agency’s probe into the coronavirus pandemic – as the Trump administration says it fears a “whitewashed” investigation.
Clark may be smarting from losing out on the UN Secretary General appointment in 2016 but her new appointment as co-chair of an investigation into the handling of COVID-19 provides some succour. She resorts to using the pandemic as the reason why Trump should rethink his withdrawal of WHO funding. “To withdraw funding from the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic is clearly foolish,” she said in an interview.
But Trump believes the UN investigation into WHO and the CCP will be biased because of Clark’s very cosy relationships with Communist dictators.
…[Clark] attracted the ire of U.N. Watch, a Geneva-based watchdog: “Helen Clark has an attraction to Communist dictatorships. Here she is showering praise on Cuba’s Communist regime for sending doctors abroad.”
At the end of May Trump acted on his threat and withdrew US funding of the WHO.
“We will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs,” Trump said. “The world needs answers from China on the virus.”
Trump quite rightly believes that the US can redirect the funds that would have gone to WHO into global health needs, clearly stating the US would not be party to a cover-up of the CCP involvement in COVID-19. Good for him. No doubt he can spend the money more wisely than the outdated monstrous UN machine. Trump also believes Clark’s contribution to the UN investigation into COVID-19 is predictable and I am inclined to agree. The global pandemic has become a very useful political tool to those who seek to gain from it.
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