London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Sunday, Aug 24, 2025

A crime against humanity: President Trump halts funding to World Health Organization

Donald Trump decided that an unprecedented global health emergency was the perfect time to withdraw American funding from the organization whose job it is to fight global health emergencies. for taking China’s claims about the coronavirus “at face value” and failing to share information about the pandemic as it spread. A lack of international cooperation in the fight against Covid-19 risks repeating the mistakes of the Great Depression
His decision to suspend contributions to the World Health Organization is an extraordinary act of moral abdication and international vandalism at a time when the world desperately needs to find means of working together to combat an unprecedented global threat.

Global problems require global solutions. Covid-19 does not respect borders – even closed ones – and its continued transmission anywhere poses a threat to health everywhere. We are still in phase one of the crisis, in which countries are mostly focused on containing the initial wave of domestic outbreaks. If these efforts are not to be in vain, then intensive international cooperation will be needed to get expertise and resources to where they are needed most – especially as the disease takes root in impoverished countries in the Global South.

The WHO is the only organization in the world with the network and expertise to effectively perform this task. And there is ample precedent of the organization delivering results even amid geopolitical conflict and tension between the world’s leading countries. In the 1960s and 70s, the United States and the Soviet Union worked together to provide the WHO with the resources it needed to eradicate smallpox, a disease which afflicted about 50 million people a year in the early 1950s and no longer threatened humankind at all by 1977.

Smallpox was a very different disease to Covid-19, but the world’s successful eradication of it demonstrates what international organizations can accomplish when governments decide to put geopolitical squabbles and petty politics aside to solve a problem which threatens them all. For the richest country in the world to decide to use its power, wealth and influence to actively undermine rather than lavishly support such efforts today is an act of moral blindness with few parallels in recent American diplomacy.

A lack of international cooperation in the fight against Covid-19 risks repeating the mistakes of the Great Depression, when many countries put up trade barriers in a misguided attempt to protect their own economies. The result was even greater economic devastation for everyone, and a collapse in international trust. By comparison, the international response to the global financial crisis of 2008 was coordinated and effective, lessening the impact of the economic shock. Today the world faces an economic crisis which may rival the Great Depression and a global health crisis unlike anything in the history of modern globalization, and its response looks much more like the 1930s than 2008.

The fact that Trump’s decisions are being driven so transparently by his petty domestic political problems suggests that the world shouldn’t look to Washington to provide responsible leadership any time soon. Trump now blames the WHO for being insufficiently critical of China’s early response to the virus, but he himself praised China’s cooperation with the WHO and separately lauded Beijing as recently as the end of March – before he started taking a battering in polls and needed ways to explain away his own failures. A president who used a daily public health briefing to show a propaganda video praising his own response to the disease is not one thinking in the visionary global terms needed to address this crisis.

The Trump administration’s nationalism and short-sightedness is particularly concerning as the world moves into the next phase of the Covid-19 epidemic, when many countries are past the initial wave and have the time to consider the situation beyond their own shores. If governments decide to myopically focus purely on their own domestic situations instead – even perhaps hoarding medical supplies to hedge against future waves of the infection – then they risk allowing a tragedy to unfold elsewhere and ultimately return to their own shores.
Advertisement

History teaches us that the sort of collective action needed to address this crisis will not just emerge spontaneously – it must be built painfully, step by step, by countries who trust one another and are able to look beyond their own immediate interests. It often requires a trailblazer who is willing to take the risk of acting first and counting on bringing others along. Previous presidents realized that with America’s great power came great responsibility, and often rose to moments like these – or at least attempted to.

Yet the current occupant of the White House has spent his entire term torching international partnerships, trashing America’s reputation as a responsible and trustworthy actor in world affairs, and making it clear he has no interest in accepting the responsibility which comes from being the leader of the richest and most influential country in the world. He wants to make America “great” but his conception of greatness would be unrecognizable to every other post-war president. If international vandalism is all he has to offer in the face of the greatest global crisis of a generation, then the world we inhabit might soon be, too.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner Purchases Third Property Amid Housing Tax Reforms Debate
HSBC Switzerland Ends Relationships with Over 1,000 Clients from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and Egypt
Sharia Law Made Legally Binding in Austria Despite Warnings Over 'Incompatible' Values
Italian Facebook Group Sharing Intimate Images Without Consent Shut Down Amid Police Investigation
Dutch Foreign Minister Resigns Amid Deadlock Over Israel Sanctions
Trump and Allies Send Messages of Support to Ukraine on Independence Day Amid Ongoing Conflict
China Reels as Telegram Chat Group Shares Hidden-Camera Footage of Women and Children
Sam Nicoresti becomes first transgender comedian to win Edinburgh Comedy Award
Builders uncover historic human remains in Lancashire house renovation
Australia Wants to Tax Your Empty Bedrooms
MotoGP Cameraman Narrowly Avoids Pedro Acosta Crash at Hungarian Grand Prix
FBI Investigates John Bolton Over Classified Documents in High-Profile Raids
Report reveals OpenAI pitched national ChatGPT Plus subscription to UK ministers
Labour set to freeze income tax thresholds in long-term 'stealth' tax raid
Coca‑Cola explores sale of Costa coffee chain
Trial hears dog walker was chased and fatally stabbed by trio
Restaurateur resigns from government hospitality council over tax criticism
Spanish City funfair shut after serious ride injury
Suspected arson at Ilford restaurant leaves three in critical condition
Tottenham beat Manchester City to go top of Premier League
Bank holiday heatwave to hit 30°C before remnants of Hurricane Erin arrive
UK to deploy immigration advisers to West Africa to block fake visas
Nurse who raped woman continued working for a year despite police alert
Drought forces closures of England’s canal routes, canceling boat holidays
Sweet tooth scents: food-inspired perfumes surge as weight-loss drugs suppress appetites
Experts warn Britain dangerously reliant on imported food
Family of Notting Hill Carnival murder victim call event unmanageable
Bunkers, Billions and Apocalypse: The Secret Compounds of Zuckerberg and the Tech Giants
Ukraine Declares De Facto War on Hungary and Slovakia with Terror Drone Strikes on Their Gas Lifeline
Animated K-pop Musical ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Becomes Netflix’s Most-Watched Original Animated Film
New York Appeals Court Voids Nearly $500 Million Civil Fraud Penalty Against Trump While Upholding Fraud Liability
Elon Musk tweeted, “Europe is dying”
Far-Right Activist Convicted of Incitement Changes Gender and Demands: "Send Me to a Women’s Prison" | The Storm in Germany
Hungary Criticizes Ukraine: "Violating Our Sovereignty"
Will this be the first country to return to negative interest rates?
Child-free hotels spark controversy
North Korea is where this 95-year-old wants to die. South Korea won’t let him go. Is this our ally or a human rights enemy?
Hong Kong Launches Regulatory Regime and Trials for HKD-Backed Stablecoins
China rehearses September 3 Victory Day parade as imagery points to ‘loyal wingman’ FH-97 family presence
Trump Called Viktor Orbán: "Why Are You Using the Veto"
Horror in the Skies: Plane Engine Exploded, Passengers Sent Farewell Messages
MSNBC Rebrands as MS NOW Amid Comcast’s Cable Spin-Off
AI in Policing: Draft One Helps Speed Up Reports but Raises Legal and Ethical Concerns
Shame in Norway: Crown Princess’s Son Accused of Four Rapes
Apple Begins Simultaneous iPhone 17 Production in India and China
A Robot to Give Birth: The Chinese Announcement That Shakes the World
Finnish MP Dies by Suicide in Parliament Building
Outrage in the Tennis World After Jannik Sinner’s Withdrawal Storm
William and Kate Are Moving House – and the New Neighbors Were Evicted
Class Action Lawsuit Against Volkswagen: Steering Wheel Switches Cause Accidents
×