2020 election: Biden says he will rejoin WHO on his first day in office

Democratic candidate says US should return to world leadership role

Joe Biden has said he will rejoin the World Health Organisation (WHO) on his first day in office as part of his agenda to “restore our leadership on the world stage”, after Donald Trump formally withdrew American participation this week.

Mr Biden, who is leading Mr Trump in multiple polls, has previously criticised the administration’s decision to back out of the WHO, and has painted it as part of a failure to engage with the wider world.

Donald Trump has made the WHO one of his main international targets as he seeks to attribute his country’s struggle with coronavirus to external forces.

While China remains his principal adversary – he now refers to the coronavirus as the “China virus” or “kung flu” – the president first withheld American funds from the WHO in April.

At the time, Mr Trump described the organisation as overly “China-centric”, a White House statement accusing it of “mismanagement, cover-ups, and failures” and of parroting Chinese government lines about the coronavirus, as well as opposing the Trump administration’s travel restrictions on arrivals from China in the name of political correctness.

The Trump administration is not only world government to have complained about the WHO, including about its relationship with China, with German ministers also acknowledging that the organisation needs to change.

However, Mr Trump’s decision to finally act his threat to pull out entirely has alarmed observers, worried that the absence of the US – and its significant funding – could allow China to consolidate its influence at the WHO even further.