Donald Trump has played the nationalist card over China as he threatens to stop funding the World Health Organization (WHO), as though calling for loyalty. The organization, according to Trump, seems to “always be on the side of China.” He says, “We fund it. So, I want to look into that.” He accuses the WHO of being “China-centric”.
About 2000 Americans die daily and Trump says the organization provided poor advice on China’s travel ban. The President of the USA claimed the WHO “called it wrong” concerning the pandemic. The Coronavirus death tolls in the USA are higher compared to other affected countries in the world.
“They seem to be very China-centric. And we have to look into that, so we’ll look into it. We pay for much of the money that they get,” said Donald Trump.
Trump said the WHO “has been wrong about a lot of things” and has made “missed calls.” Currently, he tries to push back the US WHO funding firmly. His statement was first posted on Tuesday before he repeated it during the regular news conference in the White House. The capacity of the WHO to finance its programs may be affected by that change. The US spent about $550 million last year – about a tenth of the entire body’s financing.
Is there a Possibility That Trump Would be Right About China?
When the new Coronavirus appeared in China and started to propagate across the globe, including the United States, President Donald Trump’s many foreign-policy opponents were swift to label him as part of the issue. Trump pushed for “America First” international policy. Years after, Trump was blamed for allegedly overruling the post-World War II order and denying the position, the United States has played a long time in the world. In the middle of a worldwide pandemic, he is suspected of alienating partners, disrupting international collaboration, and leading America to combat the Coronavirus independently.
Mr. Trump’s focus has been on China for weeks now, branding COVID-19 the “Chinese virus” and claiming Chinese officials concealed the facts of the spread from across the globe while keeping accurate data on the deaths of patients. Lately, however, the US president backed off this method and admitted that since speaking to its president, Xi Jinping, China has also suffered.
Many citizens of the United States are allowing their contempt for Trump to distract them from what’s happening in the world today. Far from undermining Trump’s opinion, the COVID-19 crisis exposes what his policy affirmed. it suggested that the world is a dynamic environment in which major power competitors like China pursue benefit, that the state is an irreplaceable instrument of foreign influence and successful intervention, those international organizations have almost no capability to turn the actions and desires of the state.
Is There Anything Wrong with Trump’s Policy: ‘America First’?
In the global turmoil that erupted on its territory, China, America’s greatest competitor, has played an especially critical role. The irresponsibility in that nation initially hindered swift measures to suppress the virus. Chinese authorities initially punished people for ‘spreading rumors’ about the epidemic in Wuhan. The Chinese government closed the Shanghai laboratory the following day, which first posted the virus genome on social media, as stated in the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post in February, that it was for ‘rectification.’
News sources seem to have discouraged visiting teams of specialists from other areas of China from talking openly to doctors in the infectious disease wards at the instructions of officers at the Wuhan Health Commission. “They didn’t tell us the facts,” said one of the local officials’ team leaders, and they lied to us about what we would have learned then.” Chinese ideologues now strive to create a story that conceals the source of the epidemic and accuses the US of the outbreak.
“China, against our expectations, had extended its influence at the disadvantage of everyone else,” rather than being a “responsible competitor,” a phrase used by George W. Bush’s leadership to define the position Beijing wanted to assume when China entered the World Trade Organization. Throughout partnerships like NATO or organizations like the United Nations, the USA is the cornerstone of military, political, and economic influence.
The Rift Between Trump and China may have Disastrous Consequences
Unlike the critics, “America First” is indeed not “America Independent,” because it is accurate that even a single organization, globally, has the protection of the American people as the primary obligation. The American people will still be the first representatives, whether headed by Republicans or Democrats — or Donald Trump or someone else. Reliance on China’s medical services has highlighted the risks of a super-globalized environment during the epidemic. Analysts have advised America against its dependence on China’s main pharmaceutical products, saying it is worrisome.
Americans should not rely on a competing, authoritarian state for their health. The way foreign entities work in action, however, is deeply affected by power ties between member countries. President Xi Jinping called it “reforming” a goal and taking the lead in “the global structure of the government,” a core element in “building a solid socialist new society” as he put it in the 2018 address. China has sought to lead the World Intellectual Property Organization. Washington thwarted this goal amid China’s past proprietary technology theft. Besides, Chinese technology giants have attempted to convince the UN to consider them and pave the way for its application rollout worldwide.
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How the World Health Organization (WHO) Gets in the Picture
The unequal dominance of China in the main foreign institutions was most notably clear when the World Health Organization was reluctant to proclaim COVID-19, a global pandemic. In an attempt to escape the fury of Beijing, the WHO declined to address Taiwan’s complaints about the human-to-human spread of the virus in Wuhan. The WHO has also expressed its appreciation for China’s “openness to communicating details.”
China owns 0.12% of the organization’s budget. Conversely, the United States is the largest donor of the WHO, with around 15% of the organization’s expenditure. At the beginning of March, Trump has approved an extra $1.3 billion as international aid in reaction to the pandemic. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has recently revealed an additional $274 million in immediate assistance to nations at risk. On the contrary, China’s aid has strings attached.
Senior WHO officials on Wednesday denied Mr. Trump’s “China-centric” claims by extending the credit that China has worked “very hard” to identify the sick and to deter the disease transmission by banning travel. Hans Kluge, WHO European regional director, opposed Trump’s claims on Wednesday. Mr. Kluge said this wasn’t the moment to scale down funding, and the world is living in the pandemic’s intense period.
Since the WHO rejected Trump’s Chinese travel ban, Mr. Trump rubbed it in their faces that he knew and responded early to the severity of the epidemic. However, skepticism has been that a broad-based president is placing the responsibility for his government treatment of the situation on a non-political entity. Inciting the epidemic, Mr. Trump justified the reputation of his administration as 10 out of 10. This topic might control the US presidential election, seven months from now.
