EU backs WHO, rejects Trump's pull-out threat

BRUSSELS: The European Union (EU) on Tuesday criticized U.S. President Donald Trump's threat to permanently cut funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) and to eventually pull the US out of the organisation.

Trump made the threat in a letter published on Monday on his Twitter account and addressed to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

In response to a question at a daily press briefing regarding Trump's threat, a spokeswoman for the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, said the bloc "supports international cooperation and multilateral solutions in this crisis -- in the pandemic crisis."

"This is the time for solidarity. It is not the time for finger-pointing or undermining multilateral cooperation," stressed the spokeswoman.

"The European Union backs the WHO in its efforts to contain and mitigate the COVID-19 outbreak and has already provided additional funding to support these efforts," she said." Global cooperation and solidarity through multilateral efforts are the only effective and viable option to win this battle, as we have underlined several times."