Rep. Guy Reschenthaler: China Co-Opts U.S.-Funded Institutions Like WHO

China co-opts U.S.-funded international organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) — an arm of the United Nations (U.N.) — as part of its geopolitical strategy, explained Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA), explaining his legislative proposal to conditionally defund the WHO.

On Tuesday, Reschenthaler introduced a resolution to withhold funding from the WHO until the resignation of its director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, an Ethiopian microbiologist. He joined Friday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily for an interview with host Alex Marlow.

“What my bill says is that the director-general of the World Health Organization has to resign,” said Reschenthaler. “We know that Dr. Tedros either acted with gross negligence or he was complicit in a coverup of the early days of COVID-19 in Wuhan with the Chinese Communist Party.”

“[My bill] also ties future funding to the World Health Organization to the establishment of an international body that will investigate how the World Health Organization worked hand-in-glove with the Chinese Communist Party to cover up COVID-19,” added Reschenthaler. “And until those two things happen, the World Health Organization will not get voluntary funding from the United States.”

LISTEN:

President Donald Trump described the WHO as “China centric” via Twitter on Tuesday:

The W.H.O. really blew it. For some reason, funded largely by the United States, yet very China centric. We will be giving that a good look. Fortunately I rejected their advice on keeping our borders open to China early on. Why did they give us such a faulty recommendation?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 7, 2020

Marlow said, “The World Health Organization is getting paid ten times as much by the United States as it is by China even though it seems like everything the World Health Organization does is credit China for their great work and throw shade at the United States.”

Reschenthaler explained, “There’s an assessed amount on all the nations that support the World Health Organization and that assessed amount is based off GDP. So we pay about $100 million assessed [by] the World Health Organization. We also — because we’re Americans — put forth more money in a voluntary fashion. The voluntary fashion, for us, is over $400 million dollars.”

“So we pay just about 22 percent of the World Health Organization’s total budget, and then the Western powers pay a lot as well,” continued Reschenthaler. “Yet the Chinese use the World Health Organization to parrot the Chinese Communist Party talking points and … throw shade at the United States.”

America and the broader West fund international bodies co-opted by China in furtherance of the communist state’s geopolitical goals, warned Reschenthaler. He noted China’s procurement of influence within international institutions via the establishment of “debt traps” with said institutions’ member states.

“The Chinese have been incredibly good at taking over these international institutions, and they do it because they can leverage a lot of the developing countries because the Chinese are coming into these countries, setting up debt traps, bringing infusions of cash [with] tons of strings attached, and then they have that leverage they can hold over these members when they’re on these international institutions,” concluded Reschenthaler.

Breitbart News Daily broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.

Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter.