WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, made the following statement on China’s pledge to give an additional $30 million to the World Health Organization (WHO):

“This isn’t rocket science: pulling the United States back from the world stage allows countries like China to fill the void. Isolationism is not the answer to a global pandemic. President Trump has tried to make the WHO a scapegoat to deflect from his negligent handling of COVID-19. But halting U.S. funding to the WHO has just created an even larger opportunity for China to influence the geopolitical response to COVID-19,” said Murphy. “Pandemics won't end with COVID-19—and American security will depend on our ability to strengthen and improve international global health organizations like the WHO. The fact that Trump doesn’t understand that is deeply disturbing.”

After the Trump administration halted funding to the WHO, Murphy authored an op-ed in War on the Rocks blasting President Trump’s efforts to deflect blame onto the WHO following his negligent response to COVID-19 and his continued praise for China as the epidemic continued to spread across the globe earlier this year. Murphy recently announced bipartisan legislation with U.S. Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to global health security, and reorient the United States’ global pandemic response amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Murphy also authored an op-ed in Foreign Policy about why the United States was virtually impotent from stopping COVID-19 from reaching our shores and what can be done better if and when the next pandemic strikes.

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