Having rampaged through the wealthier Northern Hemisphere, the coronavirus is expected to strike next in the poorer South, where many countries are far less equipped to cope with the medical and economic ravages. Fortunately, there are international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Health Organization to help with just such a contingency. Unfortunately, the Trump administration is hampering the work of these critically needed agencies.

President Trump took aim first at the W.H.O. last week, suspending funding for the organization pending a review of its handling of the outbreak, which he deemed too slow and too reverential toward China. Next, the White House turned to the I.M.F., blocking a new issue of its “special drawing rights,” an international reserve asset created by the fund in 1969 to supplement member countries’ official reserves.

There is some understandable anger at international institutions. The W.H.O. was slow off the mark, and its public statements praising China’s measures against the virus made no reference to Beijing’s initial silence and continuing disinformation campaign about the outbreak. The special drawing rights, for their part, are allocated in proportion to voting rights in the I.M.F., so the greatest benefit would be for stronger economies that need it less.

But these are arguments best left for normal times. They certainly have no place when instruments of immediate economic and medical aid, created for just the sort of crisis the world is suffering today, are most desperately needed. At the outset Mr. Trump had nothing but praise for the W.H.O.’s and China’s handling of the pandemic — the W.H.O., he said initially, was “working very hard and very smart,” and as late as March 27, he tweeted fulsome praise for China: “China has been through much & has developed a strong understanding of the virus.” The I.M.F., it seems, was not yet on his radar.