Who does Trump think he’s fooling?

What kind of a leader – in the midst of a world reeling from the global impact of the coronavirus pandemic with close to 200,000 deaths – would turn his back on the World Health Organisation (WHO), entrusted with the mammoth responsibility to oversee international public health?

US President Donald Trump this week pulled the financial plug on WHO – said to be over $400 million (R7.5 billion) a year – in both membership fees and donations.

In what experts and commentators have described as “bizarre and detrimental to public health”, with some referring to “Trump’s desperation to find a scapegoat for his administration’s much-delayed and chaotic response to the crisis”, the president of the world’s biggest economy had an unconvincing explanation.

Trump announced he was halting funding, while conducting a review on the international agency, because of “severe mismanaging and covering up the spread of coronavirus”.

“Had WHO done its job to get medical experts into China to objectively assess the situation on the ground and to call out China’s lack of transparency, the outbreak could have been contained as a source with very little death by comparison,” said Trump.

“This would have saved thousands of lives and avoided worldwide economic damage.

“Instead, WHO willingly took China’s assurances at face value and defended the actions of the Chinese government, even praising China for its so-called transparency.”

While accusing WHO for being gullible to China’s “disinformation”, Trump surely must have forgotten what he told the world on January 24 in a tweet: “China has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American people, I want to thank President Xi!”

Who is fooling who here?

The Trump offensive doesn’t seem to faze WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Called “a Negro” or a Chinese apologist from pro-Trump quarters, Ghebreyesus has been consistent in rallying the world not to lose focus on the bigger picture.

“The focus should be to save people. Please don’t politicise this virus. If you want to have many more body bags, then you do it,” he warned.

While the source of US-China tensions can be traced back to a trade war between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in July 2018, money is surely not bigger than life.

With the US and China being the two largest economies in the world, Chinese foreign trade grew rapidly after its ascension into the World Trade Organisation in 2001, with bilateral trade between the US and China at almost $559 billion in 2019. However, that trade became skewed, with the US running a growing trade deficit with China, which became a major political issue in the 2016 US presidential campaign.

Despite the US and China having signed a phase one trade deal in January, the two are far from burying the hatchet.

It is like the US not having forgiven Cuba for the American defeat at the Bay of Pigs.

As demonstrated by President Cyril Ramaphosa, no amount of narrow politicking will lead us out of the Covid-19 quagmire.

We either emerge as victors, or we all perish.

Brian Sokutu.

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