The US may ‘never return’ to the WHO, suggests Mike Pompeo

‘This is not the first time we have had to deal with the shortcomings of this organisation’

Secretary of state Mike Pompeo, has claimed that the US may never return to the World Health Organisation (WHO), amid criticism of their response to the coronavirus pandemic.

President Donald Trump announced last week that the US would suspend its WHO funding, so that they could review the organisation’s response to the coronavirus outbreak.

“The reality is the WHO failed to obtain, vet and share information in a timely fashion,” Mr Trump said. “The WHO failed in its basic duty and must be held accountable.”

Speaking to The Ingraham Angle host, Laura Ingraham, on Fox News, Mr Pompeo said that the US needs to “take a real hard look at the WHO and what we do coming out of this.”

He said on Wednesday that the US reformed the organisation in 2007 and added that “this is not the first time we have had to deal with the shortcomings of this organisation that sits inside the United Nations.”

“We need a fix, we need a structural fix for the WHO,” the secretary of state added.

Ms Ingraham asked Mr Pompeo, if a condition on the country’s return to the organisation, was director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, no longer being involved.

Mr Pompeo replied “That’s right and even more than that, it may be the case that the United States can never return to the underwriting, to having US tax dollars going to the WHO.”

He added: “We may need to have even bolder change than that,” and Ms Ingraham replied: “Yeah, make our own organisation.”

Earlier in the day, at a press conference, Mr Pompeo criticised the Chinese Communist Party for not reporting the outbreak sooner.

“We strongly believe that the Chinese Communist Party did not report the outbreak of the new coronavirus in a timely fashion to the World Health Organisation,” he said.

“The CCP still has not shared the virus sample from inside of China with the outside world, making it impossible to track the disease’s evolution,” Mr Pompeo added.

According to a tracking project hosted by Johns Hopkins University, nationally there are upwards of 842,624 people who have tested positive for coronavirus. The death toll has reached at least 46,785.