BERLIN — Germany will try to talk US President Donald Trump out of his decision to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization, German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said on Tuesday.
“The new US president’s announcement to withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO) is a serious blow to the international fight against global health crises,” Lauterbach said.
“We will try to persuade Donald Trump to reconsider this decision,” he added.
Trump said the WHO had failed to act independently from the “inappropriate political influence of WHO member states” and required “unfairly onerous payments” from the US that are disproportionate to the sums provided by other, larger countries, such as China.
“World Health ripped us off, everybody rips off the United States. It’s not going to happen anymore,” Trump said at the signing of an executive order on the withdrawal, shortly after his inauguration to a second term. — Reuters
