While watching campaign speeches leading up to election day on November 3rd, 2020 something jumped out at me from the republican party candidate’s words.
The current president was talking about the World Health Organization (WHO) and how he had, in the middle of a world-wide pandemic, deftly exited its membership. While many, if not most, sane people would regard that move on its face to be ludicrous, dangerous, harmful or stupid I want to refrain from commenting on that aspect and instead focus on the president’s stated reasoning for the move and the insights that it offers into this administration.
In one his stump speech on October 31st 2020 (a few days prior to the election day) he pointed out that China who he claimed to have a population of “1.5” billion pays $39 Million to the WHO while the USA has 325 Million people but pays $500 Million into WHO – these are numbers that he used and much like everything he says may only have a tenuous attachment to reality.
Trump claims that this was a terrible deal for the United States and he makes it clear that this was why he backed out of the WHO.
Just to vividly illustrate – by his numbers the USA pays the WHO ~$1.54 per US inhabitant while China pays ~$0.03 per Chinese inhabitant. Indeed, the US appears not only to be paying more in sum, but also more per inhabitant.
So his argument appears to be “If the USA isn’t paying the same as or less than China towards the WHO the deal is bad and the United States ought to have no part of it.”
This approach casts an interesting light on the principles that guide the administration. They enshrined ‘Thrift’ or ‘Getting a good deal’ or maybe even ‘Getting the best deal’ amongst the highest ideals or values of the United States.
Presidents certainly set their own priorities and values. Be it good or bad or whether those principles sit within the traditional realm of the office are other questions.
What can be said is that this particular guiding principle is that it is cowardly, weak, and inward looking. Further, this attack on the WHO seems at odds with other values that USA holds – the ‘life’ part of “Life liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. Without health no one can reasonably pursue these ideals.
In the USA the principle of “Life” and “Liberty” are not held out of reach for some people because of the price tag. Liberty must be preserved, regardless of cost. It would be anathema if someone were to say, “There are a lot of citizens here and they are not free, but giving them liberty would simply be unfairly expensive – China’s citizens they are free and they barely spend any money on liberty; there are so many more Chinese citizens than Americans! For these people we give up on liberty.”
Truly patriotic espousal of the foundations of the USA looks entirely different than impishly slinking away from an international organization dedicated to preserving the lives and safety of all people in all nations in the midst of what is certainly the largest pandemic of the last several hundred years. It begins by setting a positive example by standing up for American ideals no matter the price paid and completely without regard for what other nations pay in.