Speaking to Laura Ingraham, Secretary Mike Pompeo said that the US might stop funding the World Health Organization completely.
Pompeo: “Very Worried That We’re Still Not Getting It Right”
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump put a temporary halt on funding of the World Health Organization, due to their failures in tackling the coronavirus pandemic. Speaking to Laura Ingraham on Fox News, Secretary Pompeo said the President’s move to defund the WHO was “completely appropriate given the recent history”:
This isn’t the first time that the World Health Organization has failed to do what it needs to do when a pandemic begins to break out. In fact, I’m very worried that we’re still not getting it right. You recounted what happened in January and the delayed announcement about the pandemic, and the fact that China asked them not to announce and the WHO didn’t do that, but even today, the Chinese government hasn’t permitted American scientists to go into China, to go into not only the Wuhan lab, but whereever it needs to go to learn about this virus and its origins. We know it began in Wuhan but we need to figure this out.
Pompeo argued that it was the responsibility of the WHO to achieve the “transparency and openness that we need in China” to find out how the pandemic started. “They’re not doing it and they need to be held accountable,” he added.
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World Health Organization Needs “A Structural Fix”
With these failures, Pompeo said that the US needs to “take a real hard look at the WHO and what we do coming out of this,” noting that it was already reformed back in 2007, so this hasn’t been the first time shortcomings within the organization had to be dealt with.
“We need a structural fix for the WHO,” he continued, concluding that it may even be the case that “the United States can never return to underwriting, having U.S. taxpayer dollars go to the WHO.”
I really hope that this is something that Secretary Pompeo follows through on! Clearly the WHO haven’t learnt their lesson with the temporary removal of funds, so something more drastic needs to happen, along with complete root and branch reform.