Washington: US President Donald Trump once again on Monday attacked the WHO, saying the UN health body was a puppet' of China. Trump claimed that more people would have died from coronavirus in the country had he not imposed a ban on travel from China, which was opposed by the health agency.
"They (WHO) are a puppet of China. They're China-centric, to put it nicer. But they're a puppet of China," Trump told reporters at the White House.
"I think they have done a very sad job. The United States pays them USD 450 million a year. China pays them USD 38 million a year," Trump said in response to a question.
Trump said that the World Health Organization was against the imposition of a ban on travel from China in late January.
On Monday, Trump wrote a letter to WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus that read, "If WHO doesn't commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days, I will make my temporary freeze of US funding to WHO permanent and reconsider our membership in the organisation."
In the four-page letter, Trump announced that his government had already started discussions with Tedros on how to reform the organization but added that "action is needed quickly. We do not have time to waste".
The President also expressed concern at the WHO's "alarming lack of independence from the People's Republic of China" and urged the agency to disassociate itself from the Asian giant where the pandemic originated last December.
"The only way forward for the World Health Organization is if it can actually demonstrate independence from China," Trump said in the letter, which contains a list of grievances against Beijing and Tedros for their handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Read more: Probe into pandemic response at earliest: WHO Chief
Trump's letter came on the day that the coronavirus death toll in the US topped 90,000 and the number of confirmed cases crossed 1.5 million making it the worst hit country so far.
"The World Health Organization was against it. They were against me doing the ban. They said you don't need it, it's too much, it's too severe, and they turned out to be wrong," he said.
Trump said, "Democratic Party's presidential nominee and former vice-president Joe Biden was too against the ban."
Sleepy Joe Biden said the same thing. He said, "I was xenophobic. I was xenophobic because I said you can't come in if you come from China. You can't come into our country, very early." And Biden said, "I was xenophobic," he said.
"If I didn't do that ban, you would have lost hundreds of thousands of more people in this country. It was a very important ban. People don't like talking about the ban, but it was very important," the US president said, claiming that it was only he who wanted it.
"We did it and saved thousands of lives, hundreds of thousands of lives probably," he said.
On Monday, Trump wrote a letter to WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus that read, "If WHO doesn't commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days, I will make my temporary freeze of US funding to WHO permanent and reconsider our membership in the organisation."
Also read: Keva Bain of Bahamas is new President of World Health Assembly
(With inputs from PTI)
