Trump defends early actions on coronavirus, threatens to suspend WHO funding [Video]

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• President Donald Trump threatened to suspend the US funding to the World Health Organization (WHO), then backtracked, asserting that he strongly considers cutting the budget support for the group.
• Trump criticized the WHO and how it approached the coronavirus pandemic.
• The comments were triggered by criticisms on how he acted in the early days of the crisis when he underplayed a senior adviser’s warning in January about the coronavirus outbreak.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump warned the World Health Organization (WHO) to suspend the country’s funding to the international group and said that it “missed the call” on the COVID-19 pandemic. However, after threatening that he will cut off the financial support, the president withdrew the conclusion and instead said he would “strongly consider” doing it.

Trump’s comments were triggered by issues that he discounted a senior adviser’s early warning on a possible coronavirus pandemic, which he said he had not seen at that time. His anger was then turned on the health organization — saying that the organization mishandled the pandemic and that their approach was “very China-centric.”

The WHO praised China because of its transparency, however, there have been skeptics pointing out discrepancies on China’s official tally on COVID-19 deaths vs actual numbers.

In February, the Trump administration proposed a budget cut to the organization to $57.9 million from an estimated $122.6 million. Ever since, the president has been vocal about his disdain and apprehensions on the WHO and other international groups.

On January 30, the WHO declared COVID-19 a public health emergency, almost a month before Trump tweeted that the virus is “very much under control” in the country, and 43 days prior to his declaration of a national emergency in the US.

On Tuesday, Trump continued to defend his actions when the virus scare has just started. He said that he did not know then White House adviser Peter Navarro’s memos warning that the coronavirus could cause substantial economic loss and millions of casualties.

The president said that despite not being aware of the early warning, he mandated some recommendations such as restricting travels to and from China. Trump emphasized that he did not want to act too soon as the magnitude of the situation was not yet defined then.

“I don’t want to create havoc and shock and everything else. I’m not going to go out and start screaming, ’This could happen, this could happen.’… “I’m a cheerleader for this country,” he said.

Currently, fatalities in America have reached more than 12,000. Health officials anticipate that the weekly death tolls this week would reach a higher peak.

Source: AOL.com