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WASHINGTON, D.C. –  On Thursday, U.S. Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) spoke with Newsmax to discuss China’s growing influence on the World Health Organization (WHO) and the dangers such influence poses on global health and coronavirus recovery.

The WHO is currently headed by Dr. Tedros Adhanom, who formerly served as Ethiopia’s Minister of Health and Minister of Foreign Affairs. China is Ethiopia’s largest trading partner and currently accounts for more than half of the African nation’s debt.

Tedros’ actions as WHO Director have been frequently criticized, particularly for catering to China, discouraging global travel restrictions in February and delaying a pandemic declaration in March, all of which have contributed to the spread of coronavirus around the world.

“Ethiopia is hugely indebted to China because many of their infrastructure programs – roads, bridges, ports – that China is [putting up] in Ethiopia and frankly, all over Africa right now, where they do what we called ‘debt diplomacy.’ I call [China] the ‘payday lender’ of the world, except they don’t take your TV or your radio – they take your infrastructure,” Waltz said.

Tedros has repeatedly praised China for its “transparency” on coronavirus. Several Wuhan-based doctors who expressed early concerns about the spread of coronavirus have since disappeared.

“What China is doing with these international organizations, is they’re influencing those that are beholden to China to get their people into places like the World Health Organization and the United Nations, for that matter," said Waltz.

Waltz also discussed a bipartisan initiative to shut down China’s wildlife markets over their links to deadly diseases. Coronavirus is believed to have originated in a wet market in Wuhan. The 2003 outbreak of SARS is also believed to have originated in a Chinese wet market.

“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 markets closed, yet China has already reopened them…The conditions in them are horrific, hugely unsanitary and that’s how we see this animal-to-animal transmission..[and] sometimes animal-to-human transmission," Waltz said.

Watch the full interview here.