Trump gives a 30-day ultimatum to WHO chief, says improve or will pull out

US President Donald Trump wrote a letter to World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, accusing the global health body of taking China’s side during the coronavirus pandemic.

The letter was tweeted by Trump on Tuesday morning. In the letter, Trump said that the WHO consistently ignored credible reports of the virus spreading in Wuhan in early December 2019 or even earlier. “The WHO failed to independently investigate credible reports that conflicted directly with the Chinese government’s official accounts, even those that came from sources within Wuhan itself,” he said in the letter.

He further said that the WHO knew about a major public health concern in Wuhan by December 30, 2019, which was also communicated by Taiwanese authorities. “But the WHO chose not to share any of this critical information with the rest of the world, probably for political reasons.”

“It is clear the repeated missteps by you and your organisation in responding to the pandemic have been extremely costly for the world,” Trump said in the concluding para of the letter. “The only way forward for the WHO is if it can actually demonstrate independence from China.”

Trump has also threatened to permanently stop funding of the WHO and reconsider membership of the United States in the body. “If the WHO does not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days, I will make my temporary freeze of United States funding to the WHO permanent and reconsider our membership in the organization,” Trump told WHO chief Tedros in the letter. Speaking to the reporters at the White House earlier, Trump called the UN health body a ‘puppet’ of China.