Analysis, Side Feature
Published on 17th April 2020

Views on the News – 15 April 2020

written by Editorial

Headlines:

  • Economic Outlook looks Bleak
  • Trump says he is halting World Health Organization funding over handling of coronavirus

Economic Outlook looks Bleak

The International Monetary Fund published its forecasts on Tuesday for the global economy. The IMF is projecting the coronavirus slowdown to be the deepest since the Great Depression, with advanced economies expected to contract by 6.1 percent in 2020 and most emerging economies to shrink by at least 1 percent. The US is facing a 6% contraction, with unemployment remaining above 9% percent through 2021. The UK is looking at between 6.5% and 24% in 2020, while the eurozone is expected to drop by 7.5%. With many nations remaining in social lockdown their economies will be off-line for some time and the longer this goes on the worse the crisis will be. Many in the west never recovered from the last economic crisis in 2008 and it seems the impending crisis will make things even worse.

 

Trump says he is halting World Health Organization funding over handling of coronavirus

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday 14 April that he instructed his administration to at least temporarily halt funding to the World Health Organization over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Trump, at a White House news conference, said the WHO had “failed in its basic duty and it must be held accountable.” He said the group had promoted China’s “disinformation” about the virus that likely led to a wider outbreak of the virus than otherwise would have occurred. The United States is the biggest overall donor to the Geneva-based WHO, contributing more than $400 million in 2019, roughly 15% of its budget. But Trump has been increasingly critical of the organization as the global health crisis has continued, accusing it of being too lenient with China in the earliest days of the pandemic, causing unnecessary deaths. With his own administration’s response being widely criticised as the US now has the highest number of deaths to the virus, it seems the age-old strategy of deflections is in full swing by Trump.