US President Donald Trump on Friday announced that the country will terminate its relationship with the World Health Organization, a move he has threatened throughout the coronavirus pandemic and one that earned quick criticism from both sides of the aisle.

Addressing the press conference at the White House,Trump said, “Because they have failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms, we will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving, urgent global public health needs,”

Trump further said that the “world needs answers from China on the virus. We must have transparency.”

“The world is now suffering as a result of the malfeasance of the Chinese government”, he added.

Trump stressed, “China pressured the World Health Organisation to mislead the world” about the virus.

The US leader first suspended funding to the UN agency a month ago and accused it of mismanaging its handling of the global pandemic.

At the same event, the President also attacked China on several issues like origin of the coronavirus, recent development in Hong Kong, border disputes in the South China Sea and human rights abuses. He also announced measures aimed at punishing China, the BBC reported.

On May 18, Trump wrote a letter to the WHO in which he mentioned,”It is clear the repeated missteps by you and your organization in responding to the pandemic have been extremely costly for the world”.

“The only way forward for the World Health Organisation is if it can actually demonstrate independence from China”, the letter added.

Trump has been very critical and vocal of China’s inability to control the spread of the novel coronavirus within its territory in the last few weeks.

Trump had threatened to “cut off the whole relationship” with China earlier this month.

Trump’s decision to permanently terminate the US relationship with the WHO follows a years-long pattern of skepticism of world organizations, with the President claiming in nearly every circumstance that the US was being taken advantage of.

Trump also said in his speech,”China has total control over the World Health Organization”, despite paying the organisation a fraction of what the US does”.

However, WHO spokesperson said, “We have no comment to offer at this point.”

The United States was the largest contributor to the WHO budget, providing at least $400 million in funding last year.

In April, more than 1,000 organizations and individuals including charities, medical experts and health care companies from around the world signed a letter urging the Trump administration to reverse course and maintain funding.

Meanwhile, Coronavirus worldwide cases have crossed 6-million mark taking positive patients toll to 6,026,375 with 3,66,418 deaths while 2,656,144 have recovered, according to Worldometer figures.

The United States continues to remain the worst-hit country with positive cases toll at 1,793,530 including 104,542 deaths.