Since returning to the White House, Trump has withdrawn the US from key UN bodies including Unesco, the WHO, and the Human Rights Council, and stopped paying Washington’s dues. In this episode of Woo Says, Professor Emeritus Datuk Woo Wing Thye and Hafiz Marzukhi ask: Can the UN still matter in a world where major powers no longer believe in it?
00:00Now, this week on Wu Says, we look into US President Donald Trump's recent speech at the UN General Assembly and its implications,
00:08specifically about the sustainability of UN's funding.
00:12Here's a segment from the conversation with Professor Emeritus Datuk Dr. Wu Wing Tai.
00:18I can think of one very easy way to finance the UN, and with the UN, be able to underwrite development financing.
00:30And fighting climate change.
00:32All we need to do is to have a half a percent tax on foreign exchange market transactions.
00:46One of the biggest destabilizing elements in the world today are panicky capital flows.
01:00Just look at the Asian financial crisis.
01:03That was a very good example.
01:06And if you look at a lot of the smaller countries in the world, they got into trouble because some foreign investors panicked and caused the exchange rate to collapse.
01:20And along with it, their banking system.
01:23So, because money is moving around so much, and much of it for speculative reasons, I think a small tax, which among economists is called the Tobin tax, would be a very reasonable thing.
01:40Because it would stabilize, help to stabilize capital flows, and at the same time, would generate a large amount of money.
01:54And then it becomes an issue of how can we make sure that the UN is spending this money properly.
02:01Catch the full conversation on Awani International and across our social media platforms.
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