Sanjana Varghese
Apr 15, 2020
In case you've been living under a rock, you'll probably be aware that president Trump has been holding daily press conferences about the state of America's response to Covid-19. He often makes big policy announcements (and has big tantrums) during them.
As reporters and other White House journalists continued to ask him questions about the US government's response to Covid-19, Trump said that WHO had praised China too much, and that he was suspending US funding as a result.
Trump announced on Tuesday that he would make a move to suspend funding to the World Health Organisation (WHO) because he thinks they believed claims from the Chinese government about the spread of Covid-19. He stated that WHO’s response was too "China-centric" and that it hadn’t moved quickly enough when there were initial reports of coronavirus in December.
But Trump had tweeted in January and said almost exactly the same thing – he even thanked President Xi JinPing at the end of the tweet. He also thanked China for its transparency, the very factor which he is criticising WHO over.
Even more recently, in March, Trump said that he had “much respect” for China and President Xi Jinping after discussing how Covid-19 had impacted the economy and the environment.
In another tweet from February, Trump also says that the coronavirus is under control, and praises the “World Health” and Centre for Disease Control for working very hard, and working “very smart”.
Trump loves to lie about how he “shut it down coming from China.” We now know hundreds of thousands arrived in Amer… https://t.co/KqimAoLaxe— Richard Hine (@Richard Hine) 1586500861
Trump also said that he was one of the first people to impose restrictions on travel from China to the US. On social media, other users have pointed out that he didn’t do so on his own accord, and that his administration failed to continue to respond for months after.
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