Congressional Republicans have urged President Donald Trump to condition US funding for the World Health Organization (WHO) on the resignation of its chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus over his handling of the Coronavirus pandemic.

The Republicans have accused Tedros of being too willing to believe Beijing and of brushing off a Taiwanese warning on the ease of viral transmission.

As the world is grappling with the Coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the economies, Trump on Tuesday, announced cutting off funding up to $500 million annually to WHO, accusing the UN body of “severely mismanaging and covering up” the spread of the deadly Coronavirus when it first emerged in China.

“Today I am instructing my administration to halt funding of the World Health Organization while a review is conducted to assess the World Health Organization’s role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus. Everybody knows what has gone on there,” Trump told reporters at his daily White House news conference on the pandemic on Tuesday.

This global pandemic has so far killed over 2 million people, including nearly 33,000 in the United States alone.

Trump administration accused the Geneva-based agency of propagating “false information” and charged that its reliance on Chinese data had “likely caused a 20-fold increase in cases worldwide.”

Trump said that the world depends on the WHO to work with countries to ensure that accurate information about international health threats is shared in a timely manner. “The WHO failed in this basic duty and must be held accountable”, he emphasised.

He also accused the WHO of taking side with China in the Coronavirus outbreak that has brought the world’s largest US economy, to a standstill.

“American taxpayers provide between USD 400 million and USD 500 million per year to the WHO, in contrast, China contributes roughly USD 40 million a year and even less,” said Trump.

The US President alleged, “As the organisation’s leading sponsor, the United States has a duty to insist on full accountability, one of the most dangerous and costly decisions from the WHO was its disastrous decision to oppose travel restrictions from China and other nations.”

“They were very much opposed to what we did, fortunately, I was not convinced and suspended travel from China saving untold numbers of lives…thousands and thousands of people would have died”, he said.

American president claimed that the WHO failed to investigate credible reports from sources in Wuhan that conflicted directly with the Chinese government’s official accounts.

“There was credible information to suspect human-to-human transmission in December 2019, which should have spurred the WHO to investigate and investigate immediately”, he observed.

“Through middle of January it parroted and publicly endorsed the idea that there was not human-to-human transmission happening despite reports and clear evidence to the contrary”, he said.

According to Trump, the delays the WHO experienced in declaring a public health emergency cost valuable time.

“The inability of the WHO to obtain virus samples to this date has deprived the scientific community of essential data. New data that emerges across the world on a daily basis points to the unreliability of the initial reports and the world received all sorts of false information about transmission and mortality,” he added.

Trump alleged that the silence of the WHO on the disappearance of scientific researchers and doctors and new restrictions on the sharing of research into the origins of COVID-19 in the country of origin is deeply concerning, especially when the US gives by far the largest amount of money to the global health body.

“Had the WHO done its job to get medical experts into China to objectively assess the situation on the ground and to call out China’s lack of transparency, the outbreak could have been contained…with very little death…, he said.

Instead the WHO willingly took China’s assurances at face value…and defended the actions of the Chinese government, even praising China for its so-called transparency….”

“The WHO pushed China’s misinformation about the virus, saying it was not communicable, and there was no need for travel bans…. The WHO’s reliance on China’s disclosures likely caused a 20-fold increase in cases worldwide, and it may be much more than that,” Trump said.

He said the WHO has not addressed a single one of these concerns nor provided a serious explanation that acknowledges its own mistakes.

According to Donald Trump, had other nations like the US suspended travel from China, countless more lives would have been saved.

Earlier this month, the US President has accused the WHO of being biased towards China. Trump went after WHO and China accusing them of keeping the world in dark about the epidemic.

Meanwhile, several world leaders have condemned Trump’s decision to halt funding to the world body amidst the crisis.