Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) said he disagrees with President Donald Trump’s decision to terminate the United States’ membership in the World Health Organization (WHO).
The Trump administration formally notified the United Nations this week of its decision to leave WHO, The New York Times reported.
“The United States’ notice of withdrawal, effective July 6, 2021, has been submitted to the U.N. secretary general, who is the depository for the WHO,” a senior administration official told the outlet.
Trump first announced his intention to end America’s partnership with WHO in late May.
“We have detailed the reforms that it must make and engaged with them directly but they have refused to act,” the president said. “Because they have failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms, we will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs.”
Trump said the “world needs answers from China on the virus” and criticized WHO’s defense of China’s response to COVID-19.
Alexander said he disagrees with the president’s decision because it could interfere with clinical trials for developing vaccines.
“I disagree with the president’s decision. Certainly there needs to be a good, hard look at mistakes the World Health Organization might have made in connection with coronavirus, but the time to do that is after the crisis has been dealt with, not in the middle of it,” the Republican senator said in a press release.
“Withdrawing U.S. membership could, among other things, interfere with clinical trials that are essential to the development of vaccines, which citizens of the United States as well as others in the world need. And withdrawing could make it harder to work with other countries to stop viruses before they get to the United States,” he added.
WHO receives between $400 and $500 million in annual funding from the United States.
“If the administration has specific recommendations for reforms of the WHO, it should submit those recommendations to Congress, and we can work together to make those happen,” said Alexander, who chairs the U.S. Senate’s health committee.
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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of The Minnesota Sun and The Ohio Star. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Background Photo “World Health Organization Building” by Yann Forget. CC BY-SA 3.0.
I’ve had my differences with Lamar Alexander over the years, but this is one of the few areas where I AGREE with the outgoing senator. By its decision to pull out of WHO, the U.S. says it does not care about the rest of the world’s welfare even though U.S. policies are the chief cause of the misery that plagues the globe.
Lamer’s been such an embarassment.
Be quiet, Lamar. Your ignorance is showing….. again.
I only wish that you would have run again so we could have voted you out. At least you were smart enough to realize you were no longer wanted.
I’m so glad this is Alexander’s last term.The only
thing he has accomplished is drawing his paycheck.
Goodbye Lamar. Do us all a favor. Take yourself and your flannel shirts and move to Seattle.
Get off the stage, Lamar.
Lamar should have his staff research the WHO and its director, as some of his constituents have done, and he would find out that they are a bureaucratic boondoggle tied as tightly as shoe laces to the Chinese Communists. Or maybe he’s so tied up in commercial ventures with China that he doesn’t care that the WHO is controlled by a lying totalitarian regime with egregious human rights abuses and a disregard for human life.
Or does Lamar have a stake in the Bill Gates/George Soros medical scam to provide a “preventative” vaccine for the coronavirus and a method of injection made of plastic which is put into our skin?
Or does he just hate Trump so much that he will go contrary to any of the president’s policies? Inquiring minds want to know.
come home rino and just fade away
Said the guy who has accomplished nothing in public office, other than drawing a paycheck from the taxpayers. Don’t let the door hit you in the rear on your way out.
Now, that’s harsh didn’t he manage to modify some sort of form or somethin’…..
Rockefeller Medicine 101. We should have left the United Nations years ago. There is more to healthcare than a shoebox full of pills and an arm full of vaccines.
His last Term, I am so Happy he is leaving.
It is for that reason that I’m glad Lamar is retiring. I voted for him in every election he ran and never thought he would ever become a RINO. What part of crooked about the WHO does he not understand.
They don’t understand once they go to Washington just like a line officer gets promoted to General and the politics begin and their heads change-sad
Another weak ass Johnny white boy. This idiot needs to step down now.
A sack boy (person for pc idiots) is more useful than most politicians. What about Lamar!