Europe rallied around the World Health Organisation (WHO) after President Donald Trump announced on Friday that the United States would cut ties with the international body and urged Washington to reconsider a decision which could undermine international cooperation and harm global health.
"In the face of this global threat, now is the time for enhanced cooperation and common solutions. Actions that weaken international results must be avoided," said European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in a statement yesterday.
The WHO needs to continue being able to lead the international response to current and future pandemics, they said, adding: "For this, the participation and support of all is required and very much needed."
German Health Minister Jens Spahn said that the US split was a "disappointing setback" for global health.
Reform of the WHO is needed if it is to make any difference, he said on Twitter. "The European Union must take a leading role and engage more financially," he said, and added that this would be one of Germany's priorities when it assumes EU presidency on July 1.
Mr Trump also faced pushback from public health experts, Democrats and even members of his own party, who said the withdrawal will deal a blow to international cooperation precisely when it is most needed to counter the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
"In my 30 years working with the WHO, I have never seen it under such vicious attack," said Georgetown University professor Lawrence Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on national and global health law. "As WHO (chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus) is seeking to unify the world, Trump has blown up any semblance of international cooperation."
Critics called cutting ties with the global health agency an abdication of leadership that would diminish the superpower's influence over global health policy and cede influence to China.
"If it withdraws from the WHO, the US will lose a key means of shaping global health guidance, norms and practices. It would be withdrawing from the dominant forum for international health collaboration," said Dr Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins University Centre for Health Security.
The Democrat-led House Foreign Affairs Committee said it had launched an inquiry into the decision to halt funding for the WHO, calling it "reckless".
New York congressman and House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Eliot Engel said in a statement: "As the world is grappling with this devastating pandemic, cutting off ties with the World Health Organisation is like shutting off the fire hydrants in the middle of a blaze."
Even Senate Health Committee chairman Lamar Alexander, a Republican senator from Tennessee, opposed the President's decision.
In a statement, he said: "Certainly there needs to be a good, hard look at mistakes the WHO might have made in connection with the coronavirus, but the time to do that is after the crisis has been dealt with, not in the middle of it."
US withdrawal could interfere with clinical trials essential to the development of a vaccine and make it harder to work with other countries to stop viruses before they reach the US, he added.
Mr Trump has been blaming the WHO for missteps as a way to distract from his administration's handling of the crisis at home, said critics, who pointed at the weakness of his case against the global health agency.
