Trump ending relationship with WHO is ‘convenient:' Expert

President Trump recently announced the end of the U.S. relationship with the World Health Organization. Center for Strategic and International Studies Senior Vice President & Global Health Policy Center Director J. Stephen Morrison joins Kristin Myers to discuss.

Video Transcript

KRISTIN MYERS: Now as coronavirus continues to impact the world, the president has pulled out-- pulled the United States out of the World Health Organization because, quote, they have failed to make the requested and greatly-needed reforms. He also said that the US would be, quote, redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs. So to chat about this we're joined by Stephen Morrison, Center for Strategic and International Studies Senior Vice President. He's the Global Health Policy Center Director.

So Stephen, I know that you've worked inside of administrations before. You were in the Clinton administration. So what do you make of the president's move here?

STEPHEN MORRISON: Well, it took people by surprise. He made the initial announcement that he was going to suspend funding and reexamine on April 14. At that time, it looked as though this was an event that was paired with a surge of anti-China sentiment, that it was that China had-- the China hawks within the White House and those outside were really trying to sort of push hard at making the cooperation around the coronavirus pandemic part of the bigger, bigger discussion around confronting the Chinese, and the bigger unraveling of the bilateral relationship.

And it was a convenient sort of striking a blow at multilateralism, trying to find support within the base by going after WHO and accusing WHO of being in the-- in the hands of the Chinese, and operating as a de facto accomplice in covering things up and delaying decisions, and that unleashed this virus onto the world. That was the basic line of argument. It was deflecting blame away from the crisis we face here in the United States-- 1.7 million cases, 103,000, 104,000 deaths, 42 million unemployed.

And there was a hope that that would be walked back, that step would be walked back. There were some internal efforts within the administration to do that. There were some quiet backroom discussions with WHO. But that failed, and ultimately was overturned.

KRISTIN MYERS: So I know you mentioned some of the criticisms, essentially, that the WHO faced-- one, working with China, but also their mishandling of the pandemic, over-reliance on Chinese data. Are any of those criticisms at all well deserved?

STEPHEN MORRISON: Well, I think that you can certainly identify some areas where they made mistakes. The excessive deference to the Chinese was very visible at certain points in those critical moments in January and February. And they've been faulted for that. Some of the delays in reaching a declaration through the Emergency Committee, that this was a public health emergency of international concern, that was delayed under pressure from the Chinese. They've been criticized also for the exclusion of Taiwan from observer status.

But I think it's important to emphasize a couple of things. WHO is a member states organization. It's the member states that have the controlling power. Dr. Tedros, the director general, heads the Secretariat. He's appointed for five-year terms.

Under the rules of this organization, he has no independent autonomy, no inspection authority. He is very bound. He has no independent source of intelligence and data. So he is highly dependent on member states, whether it's the US or China or any other state.

And the WHO tends to operate in that way through very quiet diplomacy with member states, not through public confrontations.

KRISTIN MYERS: So then going forward, right, with the US not involved with the WHO, I mean, essentially, what kind of hit does that give to that organization? I mean, can they still continue to do their work as effectively or as well as before without the US's participation?

STEPHEN MORRISON: Well, right now, our assistance is running a little over $400 million a year to WHO. And that's in two component parts. It's assessed contributions to core operating costs. And then it's about $300 million that is towards programmatic support.

So on the programmatic side, there will be a setback. We're the largest donor to WHO. We account for 15% of the funding. And we provide enormous amount of technical support-- 10% of the employees mostly on loan from CDC, certain other key experts, like Maria Van Kerkhove, who's the senior coronavirus expert at WHO.

So on the programmatic side, there'll be setbacks to the polio program, to the HIV/AIDS, TB, malaria programs, to nutrition, anti-microbial resistance. Those programs are vitally important, particularly for low-income countries. The emergency program will take a hit at a particular moment in time when this pandemic is moving fiercely into low-income and lower-middle-income countries that are overwhelmingly dependent upon the WHO for their support, for building their capacity for their technical expertise.

And so weakening WHO at this critical moment is quite costly, quite reckless, quite risky. There are other things that happen, which is we take-- we basically forfeit the leadership position that comes with our prestige and our dominance in this organization. And the leadership record that we have, that is now being abandoned.

KRISTIN MYERS: Right. So clearly a huge impact to the future potentially of global health. But we'll have to leave that there. Stephen Morrison from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, thanks so much for joining us.

STEPHEN MORRISON: Thanks, Kristin.