US President Donald Trump announced last week at a conference on the outbreak of corona disease in the United States that he had temporarily suspended financial aid to the World Health Organization. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the move as a misguided policy in the current context of the global fight against coronavirus. The President of the United States believes that the main culprit of the corona crisis is the World Health Organization. This is not the first time Trump has criticized the organization’s performance. Earlier last week, the president threatened to cut off funding to the organization and has now realized his threat. The United States is the world’s largest provider of funding. In 2019 it accounted for $400 million of the WHO budget.

In fact, Donald Trump, the president of the United States, on behalf of the right-wing nationalist movement or, in his own words, the patriotic movement does not have a very good relationship with international institutions, especially those that do not secure the interests of the United States. As a result, over the past three years, the US administration has withdrawn from several multilateral, bilateral and international agreements. The withdrawal began with the Paris Climate Agreement and continued with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, UNESCO, the UN Human Rights Council and other treaties. Thus, at present, the suspension of the World Health Organization funding can be analyzed and assessed in line with Washington’s opposition to international institutions.

At present, however, about the coronavirus, the Trump administration believes that the World Health Organization is under China’s extensive influence. Trump says Beijing has deceived the world to maintain its prestige and has not issued the necessary warnings in a timely manner. So, according to the United States, this has led European and American states and countries in the world in general, to follow the wrong and incomplete guidelines of the World Health Organization, which will eventually lead to a pandemic. In particular, the outbreak of the coronavirus has had far-reaching economic and social consequences for the world.

At the same time, Trump is under intense public pressure these days, and the evidence points to negligence and recklessness in crisis management in the United States, which has made the situation so critical. So now the president of the United States is looking for a victim to put the blame on, and to hold that institution or organization responsible for this scandal. At present, Trump has repeatedly taken action to this end; once he says the fake media are responsible; once he puts the blame on the Democrats, and he has even accused the Congress and the administration of Barack Obama of being responsible for the scandals.

At present, the President of the United States has raised the issue of the World Health Organization and hopes that by doing so he will lift the pressure and criticism against his government and pass the blame to an international body. Trump also intends to portray a powerful image of himself to his supporters in the United States, pretending to have taken decisive action against an institution that is being charged with irresponsibility and negligence.

So Trump has done this mostly to influence the domestic audience, and he may be reluctant to do so when he allocates funds to the World Health Organization. That is, he would not implement this decision so that it would enter a bureaucratic process and will be solved over time.

Meanwhile, senior World Health Organization officials have expressed hope that Trump’s decision will not be executed. This means that this issue may not be implemented in practice, and it is currently a political and propaganda move. Also, the World Health Organization will not have a shortage of financial resources at the moment, because the Americans have allocated the necessary budget to date.