Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., told Newsmax TV on Thursday that China’s business interests in Ethiopia could have an influence on the Director-General of the World Health Organization and impact its actions during the coronavirus outbreak.
Waltz recently tweeted that “key fact missing in WHO debate,” noting that WHO General-Director Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus “is the former health minister of Ethiopia where China wields HUGE influence. China is taking over international institutions like UN and WHO by directing key appointments from countries where they have leverage.”
He told Newsmax TV’s “Newsmax Now” that “Ethiopia’s hugely indebted to China because many of the infrastructure programs” China is working on in the country are examples of “debt diplomacy,” saying that China is “the payday lender of the world.”
The congressman added later, “If [the] WHO was truly neutral and objective and looking out for global health, then they would be putting tremendous public pressure on China to keep these things [wet markets] closed, and yet China has already reopened them.”
Waltz also repeated the theory that the coronavirus may have originated at a Chinese research facility in Wuhan, though there is no evidence to suggest that this is the case.
“I haven’t seen anything definitive that China did this on purpose, but I think it was possibly bad science. The end of the day, these wet markets need to close… the conditions in them are horrific, hugely unsanitary.”
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Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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