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After spending weeks accusing the World Health Organization of helping the Chinese government cover up the early days of the coronavirus epidemic in China, President Trump said on Friday that the United States would terminate its relationship with the agency. “The world is now suffering as a result of the malfeasance of the Chinese government,” Mr. Trump said in a speech in the Rose Garden. “Countless lives have been taken, and profound economic hardship has been inflicted all around the globe.” In his 10-minute address, Mr. Trump took no responsibility for the deaths of 100,000 Americans from the virus, instead saying China had “instigated a global pandemic.” (McNeil and Jacobs, 5/29)

The move to quit the Geneva-based body, which the United States formally joined in 1948, comes amid growing tensions between Washington and Beijing over the coronavirus outbreak. The virus first emerged in China’s Wuhan city late last year. Speaking in the White House Rose Garden, Trump said Chinese officials “ignored their reporting obligations” to the WHO about the virus - that has killed hundreds of thousands of people globally - and pressured the agency to “mislead the world.” (Holland and Nichols, 5/29)

The president later issued a proclamation to protect sensitive American university research from Chinese spying and to bar an unspecified number of Chinese nationals from entering the United States for graduate study. He also directed an administration working group headed by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to evaluate Chinese corporations listed on U.S. financial markets as potential targets of future restrictions. (Lynch and Rauhala, 5/29)

Some congressional Republicans have echoed Trump’s attacks on the agency, but in a statement Friday, Sen. Lamar Alexander, the chair of the Senate’s health committee, said he disagreed with Trump. “Certainly there needs to be a good, hard look at mistakes the World Health Organization might have made in connection with coronavirus, but the time to do that is after the crisis has been dealt with, not in the middle of it,” said Alexander (R-Tenn.). “Withdrawing U.S. membership could, among other things, interfere with clinical trials that are essential to the development of vaccines, which citizens of the United States as well as others in the world need. And withdrawing could make it harder to work with other countries to stop viruses before they get to the United States.” (Joseph and Branswell, 5/29)

Trump's announcement was quickly panned by health experts, who claimed it would set back global efforts to track and defeat a virus that's already killed more than 360,000 people and sickened nearly 6 million. But the move has been cheered by Trump's base, which is distrustful of international bodies. The U.S. has relied on its partnership with the WHO and other countries to share crucial data and information, including on treatments and potential vaccine development for the coronavirus, as well as other public health threats including HIV and Ebola. (Ehley and Ollstein, 5/29)

An American withdrawal from the World Health Organization could wreak profound damage on the global effort to eradicate polio and could undermine the world’s ability to detect and respond to disease threats, health experts warned. The experts, from the United States and beyond, are aghast at President Trump’s announced intention to leave the organization, which he publicly blames for not being tougher on China in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic — at a time when he himself was praising China’s unprecedented efforts to control the SARS-CoV-2 virus. (Branswell, 5/30)

Thirty-seven countries and the World Health Organization (WHO) appealed on Friday for common ownership of vaccines, medicines and diagnostic tools to tackle the global coronavirus pandemic, taking aim at patent laws they fear could become a barrier to sharing crucial supplies. (5/29)

After weeks of planning, the World Health Organization formally launched a voluntary pool to collect patent rights, regulatory test data, and other information that could be shared for developing drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics to combat Covid-19. The effort reflects rising concern that some Covid-19 medical products may not be accessible for poorer populations – in any country. By establishing a voluntary mechanism under the auspices of the WHO, the goal is to create a pathway to attract numerous governments, as well as industry, universities and nonprofit organizations. (Silverman, 5/29)

With the United States preoccupied by the sobering reality of more than 100,000 Americans dead from the coronavirus, China has pushed in recent weeks to move troops into disputed territory with India, continue aggressive actions in the South China Sea and rewrite the rules of how it will control Hong Kong. At roughly the same time, Russian fighter jets roared dangerously close to American Navy planes over the Mediterranean Sea, while the country’s space forces conducted an antisatellite missile test clearly aimed at sending the message that Moscow could blind U.S. spy satellites and take down GPS and other communications systems. Russia’s military cyberunits were busy, too, the National Security Agency reported, with an innovative attack that may portend accelerated planning for a strike on email systems this election year. (Sanger, Schmitt and Wong, 6/1)

White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien repeatedly slammed the World Health Organization as “corrupt” on Sunday after the U.S. withdrew from the agency late last week. O’Brien stressed in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the United States would continue to spend the same amount on public health but was opting to divert the funds to organizations that would better use them. (Semones, 5/31)

President Donald Trump’s decision to downgrade relations with Hong Kong shows how his clashes with China increasingly feature ideological differences that are harder to resolve than the trade dispute that has primarily defined the administration’s approach to the relationship with its biggest rival. The president on Friday said China’s decision to impose a national security law was “absolutely smothering Hong Kong freedoms” and made it impossible for the U.S. to continue treating the city with a special status. (Areddy and Deng, 5/31)