[ad_1]
At the onset of the pandemic, President Donald Trump attempted to run the World Health Organization (WHO) as if it were just another business transaction – but he probably did not bank on the refusal of Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to comply with his wishes.
According to the New York Times, Trump asked Andrew Bremberg, the US ambassador to Geneva, to hand a list of seven requests to Tedros. He would not have been satisfied when Tedros refused to negotiate.
Bremberg also issued a statement criticizing the WHO and blaming the organization for its failure to “restore trust between some of its critical member states.”
“At a critical time when WHO leadership has had the opportunity to rebuild trust among some of its critical Member States, it has chosen a path that has done the opposite and demonstrated its lack of independence from to the Chinese Communist Party, ”Mr. Bremberg, the US Ambassador to Geneva, said in a statement.
But, instead of the moment becoming an opportunity to discuss how the two sides could improve their overall handling of the pandemic, hours later Trump impulsively announced at a Rose Garden media briefing that the United States would sever ties with the health agency.
Now, in the wake of Trump’s WHO split, experts are weighing in on the collapse and its impact on President-elect Joe Biden as he tries to salvage the United States’ decades-long relationship with the world health agency that the country has helped. establish. However, experts understand why Tedros was unwilling to negotiate with Trump.
According to Gostin, Trump’s demands looked more like “blackmail” than a form of negotiation.
Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University law professor and longtime WHO adviser, shared his thoughts on the strained relationship between the two sides after reviewing Trump’s list of demands. “It was a huge backlash, and it had to be,” Gostin said. “It was not a negotiation. It was blackmail.
Report typos and corrections to: [email protected].
[ad_2]
Source link