Trump administration weighing WHO funding options amid coronavirus outbreak

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Trump vs WHO

Jesse Watters on President Trump threatening to cut ties with W.H.O. funding amid their misleading COVID-19 response.

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The Trump administration is weighing options related to putting a hold on U.S. funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) amid the president's vocal frustration with the organization throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

Administration officials told Fox News on Monday that options are still being put together to be presented to President Trump. Trump suggested last week that he may put a “very powerful hold” on funding to the WHO.

TRUMP TEASES ANNOUNCEMENT ON WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION AFTER THREATENING FUNDING

One senior administration official said they are working to identify all of the funding streams related to the World Health Organization, noting that there are dues paid by the U.S. to the organization, grants, supplies and more.

The official said information is still begin gathered, and no final decision has been made by the president, as of Monday.

The work comes just days after the president teased that he would have an announcement related to the funding of WHO “sometime” this week.

"As you know, we have given them approximately $500 million a year, and we are going to be talking about that subject next week. We'll have a lot to say about it,” Trump said Friday.

Later during the briefing, the president was asked about the announcement, saying he would discuss it next week “in great detail” and that “he didn’t want to do it today, on Good Friday... or before we have all the facts.”

“We send $300 to $500 million a year,” Trump said. “China has been paying them less than $40 million over the years. We’re paying them more than 10 times [that of] China.”

He added that the World Health Organization is “very, very China-centric.”

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The United States is the single largest contributor to the WHO. The most recent invoice from the WHO to the United States, which is one of many countries that fund the organization, was for nearly $116 million per year. The United States also voluntarily gives between approximately $100 million and $400 million more per year to the WHO for specific projects -- contributions that totaled over $400 million in 2017, the most recent year for which figures are available.

That means the United States contributed more than $500 million in total to the WHO that year, which is just under one-fourth of the organization's yearly budget. The WHO's total budget for 2016 and 2017 combined was over $4 billion.

“China always seems to get the better of the argument and I don’t like that,” Trump said last week. “I don’t think it’s appropriate and I don’t think it’s fair to the American people.” Trump said that he has expressed that sentiment to Chinese leader Xi Jinping and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“I think he’s a very nice man, I liked him,” Trump said of Tedros. “But we want to make sure money is properly spent.

WHO DIRECTOR HITS BACK AT TRUMP THREAT TO DEFUND AGENCY

Tedros fired back at Trump's threat to cut off U.S. funding in a statement last week.

“If you don’t want many more body bags you refrain from politicizing it -- please quarantine politicizing COVID,” Tedros told reporters in a lengthy answer when asked about Trump’s criticism of the agency.

”The unity of your country will be very important to defeat this dangerous virus. Without unity, we assure you even any country that may have a better system will be in more trouble. That’s our message," Tedros added.

The WHO has increasingly been the focus of questions about its response to the coronavirus pandemic, including information it tweeted in January that quoted “preliminary” findings from Chinese authorities that downplayed the seriousness of the virus that has since turned into a pandemic, shutting down daily life around the globe.

Fox News' Adam Shaw and Andrew O'Reilly contributed to this report.