Donald Trump Threatens To Pull Funding For The WHO Over Coronavirus Management

Donald Trump has launched a scathing attack on the World Health Organization (WHO).

The US President has been critical of the WHO for its handling of the coronavirus outbreak and even threatened to pull funding for the body.

Speaking at a press conference, the leader said: "They called it wrong. They could have called it months earlier. They would have known, and they should have known, and they probably did know."

Mr Trump believes the WHO should have warned the world much sooner about Covid-19 and shouldn't have recommended against introducing travel bans from China to limit the spread of the virus.

As a result, the American president said the UN body responsible for looking after the world's health should be reprimanded.

He said: "We're going to be looking into that very carefully, and we're going to put a hold on money sent to the WHO.

PA

"We're going to put a very powerful hold on it, and we're going to see. It's a great thing if it works, but when they call every shot wrong, that's not good.

"The WHO, that's the World Health Organization, receives vast amounts of money from the United States and we pay for a majority, the biggest portion of their money."

"I'm not going to say I'm going to do it. We will look at ending funding."

America announced plans to ban people entering the country from China in early February. Days later, the WHO suggested any ban that interfered with international travel and trade wasn't necessary to keep a lid on Covid-19.

PA

The US leader told his press briefing: "They actually criticised and disagreed with my travel ban at the time I did it, and they were wrong.

"They've been wrong about a lot of things. They had a lot of information early, and they didn't - they seemed to be very China-centric. We have to look into it

"I don't know, they seem to come down on the side of China. Don't close your borders to China, don't do this, they don't report what's really going on, they didn't see it and yet they were there.

"They didn't see what was going on in Wuhan... they must have seen it, but they didn't report it."

Meanwhile Trump's administration has been criticised for reacting slowly to the outbreak of the pandemic and not conducting enough tests in the early stages.

Despite the virus starting in China, America has become the epicentre of cases, with nearly 400,000 infections.

Topics: News, Coronavirus

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie is a Trending Journalist at LADbible. His first job was as a newsreader and journalist at the award winning Sydney radio station, Macquarie Radio. He was solely responsible for the content broadcast on multiple stations across Australia when the MH17, Germanwings and AirAsia disasters unfolded. Stewart has covered the conflict in Syria for LADbible, interviewing a doctor on the front line, and has contributed to the hugely successful UOKM8 campaign.

@stewartperrie