Trump's Cut to WHO Funding Is Another Nightmare for Yemen
The U.S. picked the worst time possible to cut aid to one of the world’s poorest nations.
War, poverty, cholera...and now coronavirus.
Photographer: Ahmad Al-Basha/AFP/Getty Images
The coronavirus has made landfall in Yemen. The nation at the heel of the Arabian Peninsula, destitute even before it was destroyed by five years of war, now confronts a crisis that has confounded the world’s wealthiest, most peaceful countries.
Astute, sustained diplomacy by its neighbors and the world’s big powers could at least mitigate the civil carnage that the pandemic threatens to compound. At a minimum, the U.S. needs to reverse its cruel and potentially disastrous decisions to cut off not just funding for the World Health Organization but also much of its direct aid to Yemen.