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Has Trump declared a war on global public health?
222 sats \ 5 comments \ @IamSINGLE 30 Jan HealthAndFitness
On January 20, President Donald Trump issued an executive order pausing U.S. foreign development assistance for 90 days to assess “programmatic efficiencies and consistency.” The ripple effects spread immediately. On January 24, the State Department put out a stop-work order halting foreign aid work. And on January 27, the Trump administration placed dozens of officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development on leave.
Spending breakdown
SOURCE
The chart below shows how important are US contributions for the global public health.
Don't you think these flurry of orders on cutting down funding for global public health will create a chaos in some countries, especially in Africa and LatAm?
Trump said "China isn't making proportional contributions to global health funding, so he won't do it anymore. According to him, it's unfair on US people. I didn't get his logic except that he wants to send a message to all humanity that without US funding they will be crippled.
To me it looks like wagging a war on another front. I can't say how this is going to impact global health but the world will surely be more divided now.
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115 sats \ 2 replies \ @0xIlmari 30 Jan
Or maybe Trump is recognizing that:
  • These programs are corrupt and wasteful and money could be spent better, even if still on healthcare?
  • The American taxpayer doesn't want to fund the well-being of the rest of the world anymore? Perhaps foreign countries should grow up and start to learn to fend for themselves?
You can argue that those better off have a moral obligation to care for the unfortunate. But apparently the American voters are of the opinion that their own well-being has deteriorated too much and needs attention now.
And characterizing this as "war on global health" is going too far.
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20 sats \ 1 reply \ @IamSINGLE OP 30 Jan
From public's point of view, I sure agree with you. But I'm not sure about Trump's intentions. He said it in an interview that he's cutting from WHO because China doesn't make as much contributions as US does while US has much less population than it has.
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2 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xIlmari 30 Jan
Wasn't Trump during his first term basically chastising Europe for not meeting their "% of GDP" defense spending targets established by NATO? Now this time around there are even rumors of the US pulling out of NATO as well if this continues. (This will probably not happen because the likes of Germany and Poland have since stepped up their spending, scared of Russia.)
How I read him is "Hey, we agreed to be in this together, so why aren't you pulling your weight?" The US is like the only guy in a school team project doing any work. And the US voter has wisened up.
Will it hurt the rest of the world in the short-to-mid term? Yup. Will this be a wake up call for the rest of the world to grow up and stand on their own feet? Hopefully.
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @justin_shocknet 30 Jan
The war began in the 60s/70s when big food and big pharma joined the military industrial complex and banks in buying up the government and using it as a tool to launder money back to themselves with Cantillon impunity
This is just signs of resistance
You're still free to cut checks or send bitcoin to NGO's in said countries if this post is anything more than a virtue signal
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @jgbtc 30 Jan
Central planning always ends in disaster. That includes centrally planned healthcare too.
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