During President Donald Trump’s (R) presidency, he had a tumultuous relationship with the World Health Organization that resulted in defunding the WHO. Republican lawmakers championed the move as they questioned the WHO’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Secretary Blinken has announced that the Biden Administration would resume funding to the WHO, and Florida Senator Marco Rubio (R) has released a statement warning of what this means for the United States moving forward.
In a statement, Rubio expressed that “the WHO misled the world at the direction of the Chinese Communist Party, and President Biden is making a serious mistake by resuming funding to this organization without meaningful commitments for reform and transparency.” He added that “the Chinese Communist Party’s corruption of the WHO occurred despite U.S. engagement and funding,” so he warned that “reengaging in the WHO and other international organizations should follow after careful consideration of a new approach, because simply showing up is not enough if malign influences are able to control these institutions.”
When it was announced that the United States would be pulling funding from the WHO, Senator Rubio praised the move.
As a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the Senate Committee on Appropriations, the Senator last year criticized the WHO, saying that its “leadership is either complicit or dangerously incompetent.”
