Donald Trump has halted funding to the World Health Organization after accusing it of helping China to cover up the spread of coronavirus. The president announced he was cutting between $400million and $500million of funding to the UN-backed body on Tuesday after accusing it of taking China’s alleged lies about the spread and mortality rate of coronavirus at face value. He said those alleged blunders had allowed the virus to spread and caused deaths that could have been avoided.

Speaking on the White House lawn, Trump followed through on a threat he first made last week, saying: ‘Today I am instructing my organization to halt funding of the world health organization while a review is conducted to assess the WHO’s role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.

The WHO failed to investigate credible reports from sources in the Chinese city of Wuhan that conflicted government accounts and credible reports of human to human transmission in December. ‘From the middle of January it parroted and publicly endorsed the idea that there was not human to human transmission despite reports to the contrary and cost valuable time. The world received all sorts of false information on transmissability and mortality.’

The president said that: ‘Everybody knows what’s going on there’ and said WHO blunders had caused ‘Tremendous death and economic devastation.’ Trump continued: ‘Those tasked with protecting us by being transparent and truthful failed to do so. It would have been so easy to be truthful…so much death has been caused by their mistakes.

Trump accused the WHO of directly contributing to a 20-fold increase in coronavirus cases across the world, accused it of ‘many’ mistakes and said it was unfair for the US to contribute by-far the largest amount of its funding, while China gives less than $40million a year. He said US cash to the WHO would be redirected while American diplomats launch a probe into the health body’s alleged failings, with the probe set to last 60 to 90 days. WHO executive director Dr Michael Ryan hailed China for its ‘transparency’ with the coronavirus outbreak in January.

But US intelligence officials now believe the country’s communist government told multiple lies about their outbreak, and think the official death toll of 3,400 is way under the true figure of around 40,000 people killed. Trump himself has faced repeated accusations he also blundered by ignoring the potential threat posed by coronavirus for the entire month of February, saying it would ‘wash through’ the US without causing much harm, and failing to take draconian lockdown measures until March. Tuesday’s press conference – which also saw Trump directly accuse China of covering up the threat of coronavirus – was in marked contrast to a tweet he sent on January 24, saying: ‘China has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American people, I want to thank President Xi!’

He added: ‘The US has a duty to insist on full accountability from the WHO and it’s 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 lives.’ ‘The WHO’s decision to oppose the travel ban put political correctness above life-saving measures.’

‘The WHO failed to adequately obtain, vet and share information in a timely and transparent fashion. If it’s not to independently tell the truth about what’s happening, the WHO failed in its basic duty and must be held accountable.’ Last week, WHO director general Dr Tedros Adhanom hit out at Trump’s threats to freeze funding, and accused him of ‘playing politics’ with the crisis. Covid-19 is confirmed to have infected 1.96million worldwide and killed more than 125,000 people. The US is the world’s worst-hit country, with 611,000 diagnoses and over 30,000 deaths.