Trump Announces To Put A Hold On WHO Funding, Says 'They Seem China-Centric'

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 no good, Trump told reporters at his daily White House news conference.

Donald Trump (Getty Images)

New Delhi: US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that the United States which sends a large share of fund to the World Health Organisation, will put a hold on the money. Trump lashed out at the body for criticizing the travel ban at the time US did it and alleged that it is China-centric. “World Health Organization receives vast amount of money from US, they criticized and disagreed with my travel ban, at the time I did it. They've been wrong about a lot of things. They seemed to be very China-centric. We're going to put a hold on money spent to WHO,” he stated. 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 no good, Trump told reporters at his daily White House news conference. Watch: Geneva-headquartered World Health Organization, receives vast amounts of money from the United States. We pay for a majority or the biggest portion of their money. They actually criticized and disagreed with my travel ban at the time I did it. They were wrong. They've been wrong about a lot of things. They had a lot of information early and they didn't want to -- they're very -- they seem to be very China centric, Trump charged during his news conference. Trump said his administration is going to look into the US funding to the WHO. We give a majority of the money that they get, and it's much more than the USD58 million. USD58 million is a small portion of what they've got over the years. Sometimes they get much more than that. Sometimes it's for programs that they're doing, and-it's much bigger numbers. If the programs are good, that's great as far as we're concerned, he added. But we want to look into it, World Health Organization, because they called it wrong. They (WHO) called it wrong. They missed the call. They could've called it months earlier. They would have known and they should have known and they probably did know. So, we'll be looking into that very carefully, and we're going to put a hold on money spent to the WHO, Trump said. Meanwhile, Senator Jim Risch, chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called for an independent investigation into the WHO handling of the COVID-19 response. The WHO has failed not only the American people, it has failed the world with its flagrant mishandling of the response to COVID-19, said Risch. The United States is the largest contributor to the WHO. The United States' intelligence community has reported that the Chinese government hid the threat of COVID-19 and, as a result, made it difficult for the rest of the world to respond early, appropriately and aggressively, said Congressman Fred Keller.