On 14 April 2020, United States President Donald Trump announced that the United States would halt funding to the WHO while reviewing its role in "severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus."[56] A week earlier, at a press briefing, Trump had criticized the WHO for "missing the call" on the coronavirus pandemic and had threatened to withhold U.S. funding to the organization; on the same day, he also tweeted a complaint that China benefits disproportionately from the WHO, saying that "the WHO really blew it."[57] The U.S. Congress had already allocated about $122 million to WHO for 2020, and Trump had previously proposed in the White House's 2021 budget request to reduce WHO funding to $58 million.[58] The announcement by President Trump drew widespread condemnation from world leaders and health experts, and came amid constant criticism of his failure to prepare for the outbreak in the United States, the country with the highest official number of confirmed cases of infection as of April 15, 2020.[59][12] WHO called the decision "regrettable" and stated that the organization first alerted the world on 5 January when a cluster of 41 cases of atypical pneumonia was singled out from the millions of similar cases that occur every year.[60] American law professor Lawrence O. Gostin said that Trump's decision was "the prime example of why we are in this mess": the World Health Organization is hesitant to cause any offense for fear of losing funding.[61]