President Donald Trump on Friday announced at the White House that the United States would terminate its relationship with the World Health Organization.
The president said that Chinese officials failed to report details of the coronavirus properly to the World Health Organization (WHO) and pressured the organization to mislead the world about the its dangers.
“Countless lives have been taken and profound economic hardship has been inflicted all around the globe,” he said.
Trump said that the WHO failed to act on reforms that the United States had demanded, prompting his decision to end America’s role with the organization.
“We have detailed the reforms that it must make and engage with them directly, but they have refused to act,” he said.
Trump said that the United States would use the hundreds of millions previously sent to the WHO to other international aid programs.
“The world needs answers from China on the virus,” Trump says. “We must have transparency.”
He noted that Chinese officials shut off people from leaving Wuhan during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic to other parts of China but allowed them to travel the world and spread the virus.
“The death and destruction caused by this are incalculable,” Trump said. “We must have answers, not just for us, but the rest of the world.”
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