U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks during a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C., the United States, July 2, 2020.(Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)
"With millions of lives at risk, the President is crippling the international effort to defeat the virus."
WASHINGTON, July 8 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump's official withdrawal of the country from the World Health Organization (WHO) is "an act of true senselessness," U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Twitter.
Trump made the decision at a time when "the WHO coordinates the global fight against COVID-19," Pelosi wrote on Wednesday. "With millions of lives at risk, the President is crippling the international effort to defeat the virus."
The United States will leave the WHO on July 6, 2021, and currently it owes the organization more than 200 million U.S. dollars in assessed contributions, according to the WHO website.
The UN secretary-general has been in the process of verifying with the WHO if the U.S. meets all the conditions for its withdrawal, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement on Tuesday. ■
