MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Trump administration may partially resume funding of the World Health Organisation (WHO), which was suspended amid a row over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, but the amount of potential contributions will be smaller and commensurate with those made by China, Fox News reported, citing a draft letter to the WHO chief.
The draft letter to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, obtained by the broadcaster, said that Washington will "agree to pay up to what China pays in assessed contributions" to the WHO.
The draft noted that the United States saw certain problems in the work of the WHO but believed that the organisation had great potential.
"If China increases its funding to the WHO, we will consider matching those increases”, the letter read.
The previous level of funding by the US was around $400 million per year and Washington was the WHO's biggest donor. If the United States continues to fund the organisation in the same volume as China does, the new funding will be about one-tenth of the country’s previous yearly contributions, according to the broadcaster.
In April, Trump ordered that his country's funding of the WHO be halted over negligence, claiming that the UN health agency had impeded the global response to the coronavirus pandemic and let it spread by covering up the true scale of the initial COVID-19 outbreak China. The move was met with criticism from the WHO and the international community. At the same time, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did not rule out that Washington would never restore WHO funding.
