United States President Donald Trump has always been the highlight of news programs.
Just put “President Trump [anything]” and chances are, that video will trend everywhere.
After all, he was the one that suggested drinking bleach might kill off the coronavirus in the lungs.
He is also the first POTUS to be flagged for giving unsubstantiated facts by Twitter.
And now, he is in the headlines once again, this time to cut off ties with the World Health Organisation (WHO).
World Health Organisation Being Too “China-centric”
President Trump isn’t a big fan of the World Health Organisation (WHO).
He accuses them of being too “China-centric” and criticised their handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
He blames the international health organisation for advising against China travel bans earlier in the pandemic and said that he had saved an “untold number of lives” when he went ahead and implemented the ban anyway.
Meanwhile, WHO has defended its initial decision, saying that back when they advised against travel bans, world leaders had “enough time” to intervene early.
President Trump also said that WHO needs to show its independence away from China, especially since the US funds the organisation with approximately US$450 million a year while China only pays US$40 million.
He had temporarily halted funding to the World Health Organisation in April 2020.
United States Will Cut Ties With WHO
On Friday, 29 May, President Donald Trump announced that the United States will cut ties with the World Health Organisation and stop funding them.
Earlier this month, he had threatened to cut off all funding to the World Health Organisation unless they show “substantive improvements within the next 30 days”.
He said that the WHO has “failed to make the requested greatly needed reform”.
Which is why the United States will be “terminating” their relationship with WHO.
They will, instead, direct these funds to “other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs”.
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Can He Do It?
Maybe, maybe not.
That’s according to Lawrence Gostin, a professor and faculty director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University.
He calls out President Trump’s move as “unlawful” and pointed out that the president has no authority to redirect congressional funding.
“Pulling funding requires Congress, which has already authorized funding.”
Congressional Democrats also told the Wall Street Journal that “the president does not have the unilateral authority to withhold the United States’ contribution to the World Health Organization.”
President Trump’s administration, however, believed that they can bypass the “getting permission stage” by rerouting the funds to other “public health agencies or projects”.
To put it in Goody Feed style, just think of it this way: President Trump (the White House) is a person who executes actions that are decided by Congress, which is why the White House is known as the Executive Branch.
But during an emergency, the White House can just do things fastly first – just like how Trump signed an Executive Order yesterday to allow people to sue social media companies if they alter the contents people put up.
Those orders can be “overridden” soon when Congress, the real decision-making body (which is why they’re also called “lawmakers”), comes in to change it back to what it should be based on what they’ve originally decided.
Not The Right Time
Previously, when President Trump froze funding to the World Health Organisation, Bill Gates was one of the many who stepped forward to criticise his actions.
Halting funding for the World Health Organization during a world health crisis is as dangerous as it sounds. Their work is slowing the spread of COVID-19 and if that work is stopped no other organization can replace them. The world needs @WHO now more than ever.
— Bill Gates (@BillGates) April 15, 2020
The United States accounts for 14.67% of the World Health Organisation budget according to WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic. (Read: a lot).
Needless to say, if the United States was to pull out now, fighting Covid-19 might get even more complicated.
But it’s not just Covid-19.
WHO’s data shows where they have spent the contributions from the US:
Other health programs meant to fight against Tuberculosis, Vaccine-preventable diseases and Polio eradication, among many others, will suffer too.
The next question that people are asking is this: if the US stopped being the global leader, who will step up to put on the US$450 million shoes?
Joe Biden: Hi, guys.
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