On Tuesday at a White House press conference, President Trump announced that he will be cutting funds to the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) and launching an investigation looking into their handling and coverage of the coronavirus in China before the outbreak became global.

During the press conference, President Trump blamed WHO for the large death and infection rates globally and stated that if WHO had listened to him and followed his example with the travel restrictions in February, the world wouldn’t be in the problem that it is now. President Trump specifically called out their criticism of his early ban on travel with China, when  Tarik Jašarević, a WHO spokesperson, said, “Although travel restrictions may intuitively seem like the right thing to do, this is not something that WHO usually recommends. This is because of the social disruption they cause and the intensive use of resources required.”

However, President Trump believes that more could’ve been done by WHO before the outbreak even went global. He claims that WHO didn’t adequately look into the research put forth by the Chinese government at the beginning of this pandemic and because of that the virus spread further than it should’ve. Most notably, the World Health Organization claimed early on that the coronavirus did not have human-to-human transmission. However, President Trump is also under fire for brushing it off early on as something “like the common flu.”

President Trump also said that he wonders, “whether America’s generosity has been put to the best use possible.” The United States is currently the country that supplies WHO with most of its funding, putting in about 400 million dollars last year alone. In comparison, China only gave about 40 million dollars last year and most European nations gave similar amounts. This cut aligns with the Trump Administrations mission statement of saving money and cutting waste as the President relies on his own task force instead of the advice of the WHO.

As the story on the funds updates, we will keep you informed.