beijingwalker
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2011
- Messages
- 65,195
- Reaction score
- -55
- Country
- Location
U.S. Leads the World’s Virus Fight? That’s News to the World
The State Department insists the Trump administration is at the fore of the global response to the coronavirus, but worries persist about an American retrenchment.
halting funding to the World Health Organization, skipping a vaccine donor conference in Europe or barring foreign health workers in poor nations from buying masks and gloves with American aid, the Trump administration’s retrenchment has alarmed allies and allowed China to take a larger, if contentious, public role in the worldwide efforts.
told reporters on Wednesday.
He said a host of countries, like Australia, Kazakhstan, Nigeria and France, had begun to reject China’s assistance. That includes what Mr. Pompeo described as defective face masks and other equipment sent to Spain and the Czech Republic. “The free nations of the world are starting to understand that China doesn’t share those democratic values that we hold dear, or their economic interests, and that this matters to the entire world,” Mr. Pompeo said.
Yet humanitarian workers have reported that only a fraction of the American aid has reached frontline responders overseas who are trying to stem the virus. And the funding alone has not quieted a growing unease among foreign allies that the United States will disengage from a united approach to treat and cure the pandemic.
United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accords.
this week echoed the Trump administration’s push to abolish the World Trade Organization, which many conservatives see as a relic in an outdated global economic system that does not serve the interests of the United States.
Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said it was necessary to be part of global decisions to curb the coronavirus if there was any hope of stopping its spread in the United States. That is how the country has dealt with other worldwide threats over the last 100 years, he said.
“There is a moral imperative to U.S. leadership in the global arena right now,” Mr. Menendez said in a statement.
he was withholding hundreds of millions of dollars to the W.H.O., which he said had allowed the virus to spread because of the organization’s mismanagement and failure to hold China accountable for its origins.
told reporters that even before the onset of the pandemic, American officials had been looking to work with alternate relief organizations on a wide range of public health issues.
He said part of the current review of the funding freeze, which will consider “all aspects of operations” in the World Health Organization and conclude by mid-July, “is to evaluate the availability of new partners to carry out this work.”
Some experts suspect that this ultimately will not come to pass, and that the United States will remain an active participant in the organization. “I have seen this as a lot of bluster without a whole lot of carry-though,” said Ashish K. Jha, a professor and director of the Global Health Institute at Harvard University.
But a senior State Department official noted that the United States was giving far more money to other international groups, like UNICEF and the World Food Program, and to specific nations through nongovernmental organizations, than it was to the W.H.O.
The American aid agency that Mr. Barsa leads recently banned some relief groups from buying masks, gloves, respirators, ventilators and other personal protective gear for health workers in some of the world’s poorest countries.
The new guidance, a copy of which was provided to The New York Times and later confirmed by the agency, applies to new aid contracts on a limited basis until the White House issues a broader policy, given what has become a global competition for medical gear.
Gayle E. Smith, who ran the American aid agency during the Obama administration, said sending U.S. funding abroad and supporting relief programs was only one element of leading the global response to the virus. It is also important, she said, to be visibly active in international organizations like the W.H.O. to ensure the United States remains a guiding force.
“There needs to be a place where all of this comes together in some international institution,” said Ms. Smith, now the president and chief executive of the One Campaign, which the rock star Bono helped found to combat poverty and disease. “If there’s an issue or a concern, then we should work with the organization to solve it.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-alliances.html
The State Department insists the Trump administration is at the fore of the global response to the coronavirus, but worries persist about an American retrenchment.
- May 8, 2020
- WASHINGTON — A new Democratic plan for confronting the coronavirus echoes what much of the rest of the West has been saying for months: that the United States has stepped back from the global response just as it is needed most.
halting funding to the World Health Organization, skipping a vaccine donor conference in Europe or barring foreign health workers in poor nations from buying masks and gloves with American aid, the Trump administration’s retrenchment has alarmed allies and allowed China to take a larger, if contentious, public role in the worldwide efforts.
told reporters on Wednesday.
He said a host of countries, like Australia, Kazakhstan, Nigeria and France, had begun to reject China’s assistance. That includes what Mr. Pompeo described as defective face masks and other equipment sent to Spain and the Czech Republic. “The free nations of the world are starting to understand that China doesn’t share those democratic values that we hold dear, or their economic interests, and that this matters to the entire world,” Mr. Pompeo said.
Yet humanitarian workers have reported that only a fraction of the American aid has reached frontline responders overseas who are trying to stem the virus. And the funding alone has not quieted a growing unease among foreign allies that the United States will disengage from a united approach to treat and cure the pandemic.
United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accords.
this week echoed the Trump administration’s push to abolish the World Trade Organization, which many conservatives see as a relic in an outdated global economic system that does not serve the interests of the United States.
Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said it was necessary to be part of global decisions to curb the coronavirus if there was any hope of stopping its spread in the United States. That is how the country has dealt with other worldwide threats over the last 100 years, he said.
“There is a moral imperative to U.S. leadership in the global arena right now,” Mr. Menendez said in a statement.
he was withholding hundreds of millions of dollars to the W.H.O., which he said had allowed the virus to spread because of the organization’s mismanagement and failure to hold China accountable for its origins.
told reporters that even before the onset of the pandemic, American officials had been looking to work with alternate relief organizations on a wide range of public health issues.
He said part of the current review of the funding freeze, which will consider “all aspects of operations” in the World Health Organization and conclude by mid-July, “is to evaluate the availability of new partners to carry out this work.”
Some experts suspect that this ultimately will not come to pass, and that the United States will remain an active participant in the organization. “I have seen this as a lot of bluster without a whole lot of carry-though,” said Ashish K. Jha, a professor and director of the Global Health Institute at Harvard University.
But a senior State Department official noted that the United States was giving far more money to other international groups, like UNICEF and the World Food Program, and to specific nations through nongovernmental organizations, than it was to the W.H.O.
The American aid agency that Mr. Barsa leads recently banned some relief groups from buying masks, gloves, respirators, ventilators and other personal protective gear for health workers in some of the world’s poorest countries.
The new guidance, a copy of which was provided to The New York Times and later confirmed by the agency, applies to new aid contracts on a limited basis until the White House issues a broader policy, given what has become a global competition for medical gear.
Gayle E. Smith, who ran the American aid agency during the Obama administration, said sending U.S. funding abroad and supporting relief programs was only one element of leading the global response to the virus. It is also important, she said, to be visibly active in international organizations like the W.H.O. to ensure the United States remains a guiding force.
“There needs to be a place where all of this comes together in some international institution,” said Ms. Smith, now the president and chief executive of the One Campaign, which the rock star Bono helped found to combat poverty and disease. “If there’s an issue or a concern, then we should work with the organization to solve it.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-alliances.html
