President Trump said the U.S. would halt funding to the World Health Organization while his administration investigates what he called the group’s mismanagement of the coronavirus response.
The president faulted the WHO for, in his view, failing to adequately investigate early information about the virus’s ability to spread from one human to another and for not calling out China on its alleged lack of transparency over the virus.
“The WHO failed in its basic duty and must be held accountable,” Mr. Trump said during a news conference Tuesday at the White House. “So much death has been caused by their mistakes.”
A senior administration official said the funding halt would go into effect immediately. The official said the U.S. provided $453 million to the WHO in fiscal year 2019 and that the administration will discuss diverting the money that would have gone to the WHO to other health programs.
Mr. Trump said the coronavirus might have been contained in China if the WHO had acted more quickly. The president also alleged that WHO officials weren’t skeptical enough of Beijing’s statements about the virus, and he said they resisted efforts by the U.S. to put travel restrictions on China.
In mid-January, the WHO said preliminary investigations conducted by Chinese authorities found there was no clear indication that coronavirus was spreading between humans. On Jan. 30, the group declared coronavirus to be a “public-health emergency of international concern.”
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres denounced the funding freeze, saying in a statement that there will be a time to look into how the virus spread so rapidly, across the globe, but now isn’t that time. It is also “not the time to reduce the resources for the operations of the World Health Organization or any other humanitarian organization in the fight against the virus,” Mr. Guterres said.
The WHO didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Democrats panned Mr. Trump’s decision, arguing it could complicate global efforts to respond to the outbreak. “Any attempt by the President to force United States health experts to work without the WHO would be counterproductive and lead to more suffering in the end,” House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D., N.Y.) said.
Earlier this week, officials said that Mr. Trump’s threat last week to withhold money from the WHO stemmed from a continuing discussion inside the administration to link the $12 billion the U.S. spends on international organizations to the number of American citizens hired by the groups.
The effort to withhold the WHO’s funding has been part of a broader push to curtail China’s growing global influence but was delayed by turnover inside the White House and the State Department, according to current and former administration officials.
However, earlier this year, the U.S. president praised China’s response. “China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency,” Mr. Trump posted on Twitter in January. “It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!”
The U.S. president has himself come under criticism for his response to the pandemic, including a lack of widespread testing and persistent problems getting crucial medical equipment to states.
The current WHO director, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of Ethiopia, warned countries not to politicize the pandemic after Mr. Trump threatened the group’s funding last week.
The U.S. pays for about 22% of the WHO’s budget, with money passing through various agencies, according to WHO records. In recent years, the organization has received money from the State Department, Department of Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Agency for International Development, much of which has been spent eradicating polio and aiding health and nutrition services in Africa, according to the WHO.
In 2020, the American share will be just under $116 million, according to the WHO, but the U.S. also can make larger voluntary contributions. For instance, in 2017 the U.S. made a voluntary contribution of $401 million, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis.
Congressional Democrats have said Mr. Trump can’t cut WHO funding on his own. The White House budget office has concluded the president has several options to withhold money from the WHO without congressional approval, officials said. One option is to order agencies to reroute the money to other related purposes, officials said.
Write to Andrew Restuccia at Andrew.Restuccia@wsj.com