The Downside of Defunding the World Health Organization

The group’s’s coronavirus actions warrant criticism and pressure, but America abandoning the WHO could be a bad strategy.

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On April 14, President Donald Trump announced that he is freezing U.S. funding for the World Health Organization (WHO), denouncing it for “severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.” But while the WHO deserves criticism, especially for helping China spread disinformation, it’s not clear how this particular action will help the United States or the world.

Our actions should be driven by national interest and strategy: What are America’s goals for WHO and global health, and how will defunding achieve them? There’s no indication the Trump administration can answer that, or has even thought about it.

The United States contributed $553.1 million in 2018–19, about 10 percent of the organization’s two-year budget of $5.62 billion. For the federal government, it’s not a lot of money. To put it in perspective, $553.1 million is just 15 percent of the tax cut Wells Fargo got in December 2017, or about .025 percent of the recently -passed coronavirus rescue package. The U.S. barely saves any money, and China could easily fill the gap if it wants.

International institutions are an arena of great power competition, and if the goal is weakening China, ceding control of an institution America helped create won’t do that. It will, however, upset a lot of people who are looking to the World Health Organization for help managing the global pandemic, and who think highly of its efforts to eradicate smallpox and other diseases. 

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  1. Avatar photo
    Logical

    https://thebulwark.com/the-ten-weeks-that-lost-the-war/

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    1. Avatar photo
      Logical

      It's time to demand some accountability from the AEI crowd (including JG) for their contribution to the our international adventures since 9/11. Now they are at it again to absolve Trump's incompetence with the WHO excuse.

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    Pat Riot

    Prediction: Biden piles on the WHO criticism (because what would he care), and the Republicans suddenly drop it. Just like what happened with China...

    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/04/19/biden_ad_trump_left_us_unprepared_for_epidemic_rolled_over_for_the_chinese.html

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    Brian Andrews

    60-90 day pause in funding while the world sorts out what the WHO knew and who it really works for seem utterly reasonable.

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    Alex

    Thanks for the write-up and if I may, you hit it just right when referencing Trump's three years of breaking and disparaging alliances. A situation like the one we find ourselves in requires monumental efforts of compromise and unification. Attributes that are clearly not in Trump's wheelhouse.

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    Paul Reichardt

    Perhaps, if WHO critics were serious, when this is all over, we could appoint a commission headed by an elder statesperson who has more credibility then Trump, Pompeo, Bolton or any in that orbit with working with international institutions (you know, as opposed to having an itch to nuke them into oblivion) to act constructively for reform? Perhaps, a Brent Scowcroft, the exhumed body of GHW Bush (RIP), or Colin Powell even (I presume TD readers wouldn't trust internationalist Democrats like Madeline Albright, John Kerry, or Jimmy Carter for this role)

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      DougCLE

      Eh. Don't you feel we already have too much federal bloat already?
      Like, I'm already paying the salaries of an entire department whose sole job is to handle this sort of thing. So when I don't like their performance, my only option is to hire a whole separate group - outside the chain of command, and with no formal power - to do their jobs for them? I don't see that as good value for my tax dollar.
      Besides, even if they did manage to patch things up, that only papers over the very real problem of poor leadership from Pompeo's boss. From your post, I'm assuming you're not a fan of his, so you really want that all fixed up and shipshape just in time for November?
      The WHO really has been recalcitrant, placing its internal politics over the human lives it is pledged to protect. I say let this play out and see where it goes; it's not like the next administration can't walk it back.

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        Paul Reichardt

        An independent commission could be 2-3 people with whom other nations would have confidence in it's good-faith operation to audit the agency in question for a few months. They would conclude with a non-binding report of recommendations. It doesn't have to be the Mueller or Starr investigation.

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    Pat Riot

    So wait, we're talking about a delay of EXACTLY SEVEN DAYS, and that's the whole of the tangible failure of WHO? Yes, that is a failure, and it should be criticized, but this is not even remotely the scapegoat Trump is hoping it will be.

    Trump needs to explain why South Korea, who worked with the same agencies and had access to far less information the US would have with our Intelligence Community and several weeks more of warning, contained its outbreak and the USA did not.

    Trump's failure is catastrophic and is directly traceable to thousands of dead Americans. This is exactly what Republican national security personnel warned the country about before he was elected when they pleaded with Americans to vote for the Democrats just this once.

    Trump's allies in the GOP and the right-wing media *knew* that this crisis would expose all of Trump's weaknesses which is why the instantly positioned it as an "impeachment" of Trump (why wouldn't it create an enormous political opportunity like say 9/11 did for Bush?).

    The Dispatch ought to be careful taking Trump's word on *anything*. It turns out there was a lot more communication with WHO and the White House than Trump would have you believe:

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/americans-at-world-health-organization-transmitted-real-time-information-about-coronavirus-to-trump-administration/2020/04/19/951c77fa-818c-11ea-9040-68981f488eed_story.html

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    JohnF

    The WHO has an important role now to play in US Presidential politics. They (along with China) are being made into the villain in the Coronavirus story. The new narrative is that the Trump Administration would have been fully prepared if it hadn't been misled by the WHO. Trump would never have called this pandemic a "hoax" if he hadn't been misled by the WHO. It may not be the best thing for World Health to cut off funding, but it might help Team Trump to continue to develop this propaganda vehicle..

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    Johntadian

    From what I can determine from the WHO's own Scale of Assessment 2020 ( https://www.who.int/about/finances-accountability/funding/A72_R12-en.pdf?ua=1 ), the US pays 22% of their budget as opposed to the next highest donor, China, who is at 12% (the next being Japan at 8%). Shouldn't our contribution's influence at least match that of the next highest, which is almost half as much? Unfortunately, this pattern seems to span most international agencies that we contribute to. They're all to glad to take our money, but rarely take our advice or respond to our criticisms. Unfortunately, nothing gets their attention like money.

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      Idontdocute

      We might have had more of their attention if the administration had bothered filling our seat at the organization. As I suggested at the earlier article, Clint Eastwood talking to an empty chair.

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        td12212

        https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z3ba5j/trump-is-scapegoating-the-who-but-failed-to-confirm-a-us-representative-for-3-years

        This seat?

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        Johntadian

        Who is Mrs Gabrielle Lamourelle?

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  9. Nathan Shiba

    Thank you for the very thoughtful piece, Team Dispatch. I am not, however, convinced by Professor Grossman that the WHO or virtually any UN organization, can perform a critical function that all countries can rely upon with confidence. The politics of the UN mortally degrades the effectiveness of most things it touches. (I find the work of Hillel Neuer and UN Watch especially persuasive in this respect.)

    While the WHO might and perhaps should continue to exist to promote the general health of underserved populations, why would the US or any country with a highly developed medical and research infrastructure ever rely on the WHO for critical information or coordination during a future pandemic?

    In this mission critical role - providing accurate, timely and unbiased information during a world health emergency - the WHO has failed and will likely never be taken seriously or literally again.


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  10. Avatar photo
    Logical

    Lyman Stone did a hatchet job on TD. He and TD have some 'splaining to do.

    In his eagerness to paint WHO and its Head as corrupt, useless, pigs at the trough, he didn't address the real issue. What exactly transpired between WHO and US Agencies during the most critical period; Jan-Feb '20.

    Now we know. Just catch up at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/americans-at-world-health-organization-transmitted-real-time-information-about-coronavirus-to-trump-administration/2020/04/19/951c77fa-818c-11ea-9040-68981f488eed_story.html

    There is more to come.

    FYI, I don't give a damn about the Head of WHO; it's irrelevant to the subject at hand. But I am also (through my own professional experience) familiar with the processes and deliberations on such complex subjects. WHO is not some alien enterprise from an outer planet. There are hourly, daily, weekly, deliberations with both the inhouse scientific staff and CDC staff. It was intense during this time frame according to WaPo reports (if you consider WaPO fake news, read DF's recent article on that subject).

    The give away from the Stone article is in his own words: "Strikingly, the WHO’s current head, Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu, is not a doctor of medicine: He’s a scientist. He’s the first WHO director-general to not be a physician..."

    How does that even an issue; the guy has a Ph.D. in public health! It shows ignorance, bias, contempt, and an axe to grind.

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      John Q. Public

      I fail to see how the WaPo article absolves the WHO. That some CDC staff embedded there were passing data to their U.S. counterparts does not change the fact that WHO leadership accepted Chinese lies at face value and used the credibility of their organization to amplify those lies. Furthermore, they refused and continue to refused to engage with a country (Taiwan) that has arguably had the single most effective COVID response in the world (again, at the behest of Tedros' CCP backers). I'm still unsure of where I stand on the funding issue, but Lyman Stone's article was a perfectly fair, if aggressive, critique of the WHO.

      What the WaPo article does do is expand our understanding of how badly our own government failed to adequately prepare for a COVID outbreak in the US. Since you think that the head of the WHO's actions are "irrelevant to the subject at hand", I assume you are willing to apply the same logic to President Trump's actions in January and February?

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      1. Avatar photo
        Logical

        Logical1 min
        "Since you think that the head of the WHO's actions are "irrelevant to the subject at hand", I assume you are willing to apply the same logic to President Trump's actions in January and February?"

        I can write a long thesis, but a short clip is:

        Trump is directly responsible for letting this get out of hand, therefore he has the blood of tens of thousands of Americans on his hand.

        Go read Stone article again; it comes across as a personal vendatta. Who cares what transpired with the Ethiopian diarrhea, or which discipline his Ph.D was in. All that matters is exactly what did CDC need to know, and how Trump's staff conveyed that to Trump, and howTrump wasted away the entire month of Feb. If it makes everybody happy to hang Tedros to save Trump, go at it.

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      2. Anonymous

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          John Q. Public

          I'm not trying to save Trump, my point was that both he and Tedros were in positions to blunt the effects of this virus and they both failed spectacularly. You cannot hold Trump accountable for the US government's many failures and also absolve Tedros of the WHO's gross obsequiousness to the CCP's wishes at every turn.

          Regarding Stone's description of Tedros' past, I absolutely care what the credentials are of the man who leads one of the largest public health organizations in the world, an organization that receives hundreds of millions of dollars from the U.S. every year. I think it's fine to disagree about the merits of a Ph.D in Public Health vs. a medical degree, but it is worth noting that he's the first head of the WHO *ever* who is not a physician.

          As for bringing up the Ethiopian cholera epidemics, if you can't understand why Tedros's past of covering up disease outbreaks for political reasons is relevant to the current situation with China, then I really don't see how I can explain it any more simply.

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            Pat Riot

            So one week made all of the difference?

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        td12212

        WHO leadership might be crooked but the underlings were communicating with the CDC on a daily basis so we had plenty of heads up about the severity of covid19, we just chose to blow it off.

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      Philbnichols

      Disagree, mostly. I more agree with Simon Michau's point that Lyman's and Grossman's articles are complementary. Lyman has a more aggressive approach than Grossman, but both of their goals (correcting direction of the WHO) are essentially the same. Hard to tell what Trump's motivations are, but likely the same. Really wish we had a president who acted with more finesse, but he is who we have.
      Also, the WaPo article you reference is not exactly an unbiased source, if only because the bias evident in the title of the article isn't matched by it's less-biased content.

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      1. tla

        I think it's clear Trump's primary motivation is finding a scapegoat. This not to say he doesn't have any concerns WHO governance, but it's clearly secondary because he didn't care about it before this current crisis as demonstrated by only now nominating someone to the WHO Executive Board now after three year of leaving the seat open. International leadership is just something the Trump administration isn't interested in.

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      td12212

      I agree. There appears to have been plenty of communication between the WHO apparatchiks and the US CDC. This communication created plenty of opportunity for the CDC and US-INTEL to warn the white house about impending doom. The white house chose to walk on the bright side of the street and ignore these warnings and thus imperil the nation. And we suffer the fruits of this today...

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