Trump is using the World Health Organization as a whipping boy for his abject failure to deal with the coronavirus pandemic in the United States. His decision to pull the US out of the WHO will be a public health disaster for our country and make us far less safe in a world where occurrence of pandemics is becoming far more likely. But, to add insult to injury, Trump has decided to stiff the WHO on annual dues that the US owes the organization for 2020 and partial dues owed for 2019. This is money we committed to pay, but just as Trump has routinely stiffed vendors of his businesses, Trump is treating a global organization made up of sovereign nations the same way he has treated thousands of small businesses over the decades.
The Trump administration will decline to pay tens of millions of dollars owed to the World Health Organization (WHO) in annual dues as part of the U.S.'s withdrawal from the global body, which is scheduled for next year.
The Associated Press reported that the U.S. will not pay just over $60 million owed in 2020 dues to the organization, and Reuters reported that the decision also will affect about $19 million still owed in 2019 dues.
When Trump built his grand Taj Mahal casino, he claimed he was self-financing the project. But, he wasn't and ultimately he issued billions in junk bonds to complete the work on the facility. When the project went belly-up, Trump walked away and his vendors took a bath.
Jenkins was just 19 when Triad Building Specialties, started by his father in the mid-1970s, got the $300,000 contract to provide guardrails, doors, stalls and paper dispensers for the nearly 300 public bathrooms at the Trump Taj Mahal casino overlooking the Atlantic City beachfront.
What Trump didn't say was that he financed the Taj with junk bonds. And what he did not tell the scores of contractors who worked on the overly lavish casino was that he could not pay their bills.
Triad Building Specialties ended up taking out a $40,000 loan just to pay its suppliers. And then the firm needed another decade just to pay off the loan. In the end, Triad received only 40 cents on the dollar from Trump for its work on the Taj, said Jenkins, now 49 and the firm’s co-owner.
Whether as a "businessman" or as "president," Trump's behavior is the same. He's a fraud, who will cheat on anyone and any deal.
