The President of United States Donald Trump has threatened to permanently freeze US funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) unless “substantive improvements” were made within the next 30 days.

Earlier, Trump had announced cutting off funding of up to USD 500 million annually to the WHO on April 15, accusing the UN body of “severely mismanaging and covering up” the spread of the deadly coronavirus when it first emerged in China. He had 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.”

Once again, Trump took to Twitter and posted images of a letter he sent to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, saying the letter was “self-explanatory.”

This is the letter sent to Dr. Tedros of the World Health Organization. It is self-explanatory! pic.twitter.com/pF2kzPUpDv

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 19, 2020

Trump has listed what he says are examples of the WHO’s shortcomings in managing the pandemic, in the letter, including ignoring early reports of the emergence of the virus, and being too close to China.

“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 Organization is if it can actually demonstrate independence from China,” Trump said in the letter.

“If the World Health Organization does not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days, I will make my temporary freeze of United States funding to the World Health Organization permanent and reconsider our membership in the organization,” he said.

Earlier Monday, the the global health body said it would launch an independent review of the response to the coronavirus pandemic.

During a virtual assembly, Tedros Adhanom acknowledged there had been shortcomings and told the assembly he welcomed calls for a review.

Earlier, in April Trump had alleged that, had other nations like the US suspended travel from China, countless more lives would have been saved.

According to Johns Hopkins University over 4.7 million people have been infected, while over 3.15 lakh casualties have been reported globally.