Trump orders the US to withdraw from the World Health Organization – National
The United States will leave the World Health Organization, President Donald Trump said Monday, saying the world health organization has mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic and other global health problems.
Trump said the WHO had failed to act independently of “undue political influence by WHO member states” and demanded an “unreasonably heavy payment” from the US that was disproportionate to figures given to other major countries, such as China.
“World Health pulled us out, everyone is pulling out the United States. It won’t happen again,” said Trump when the executive order was signed about the withdrawal, shortly after he was inaugurated for a second term.
The WHO said on Tuesday it regretted withdrawing from its biggest donor country.
“We hope that the United States will reconsider, and we really hope that there will be a constructive dialogue that will benefit everyone, for the American people but also for people around the world,” WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told reporters in Geneva.
The move sets a 12-month notice period for the US to leave the United Nations health organization and suspend all financial contributions to its work. The United States is the WHO’s largest financial sponsor, contributing about 18 percent of its total funding. The WHO’s latest two-year budget, for 2024-2025, was US$6.8 billion.
The US move is likely to jeopardize programs across the organization, according to several experts inside and outside the WHO, especially those dealing with tuberculosis, the world’s biggest infectious disease killer, as well as HIV/AIDS and other health emergencies.
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“This is the darkest day for global health that I have ever seen,” said Lawrence Gostin, professor of global health at Georgetown University in Washington and director of the WHO Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. “Trump may be sowing the seeds of the next pandemic.”
Trump’s order said the administration would suspend negotiations on the WHO pandemic agreement while the withdrawal is pending. US government employees working with the WHO will be withdrawn and reassigned, and the government will look for partners to take over necessary WHO functions, according to the order.
The administration will review, withdraw, and replace the US Global Health Security Strategy 2024 as soon as possible, the order said.
The next largest donor to the WHO is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, although most of that funding goes to polio eradication. Its CEO, Mark Suzman, said in X that the foundation will continue to make this case to strengthen and not to weaken the WHO. The next largest state donor in terms of combined mandatory funds and voluntary contributions is Germany, which accounts for approximately 3 percent of WHO funding.
Germany’s health minister said on Tuesday that Berlin hoped to talk Trump out of the measure while the European Union expressed concern.
When asked about Trump’s decision, China’s Foreign Ministry told a regular press conference on Tuesday that the WHO’s role in global health governance should only be strengthened, not weakened.
“China will continue to support the WHO in fulfilling its responsibilities, and deepen international public health cooperation,” said Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for the Ministry.
Trump’s withdrawal from the WHO is unexpected. He took steps to leave the body in 2020, during his first term as president, accusing the WHO of aiding China’s efforts to “mislead the world” about the origins of COVID.
The WHO strongly denies the allegations and says it continues to press Beijing to share information to determine whether COVID arose from contact between people and infected animals or from research on the same virus in a local laboratory.
Under US law, leaving the WHO requires a one-year notice period, and payment of any outstanding fees. Before the US withdrawal was completed for the last time, Joe Biden won the presidential election and installed it on his first day in office on Jan. 20, 2021.
-Reporting by Patrick Wingrove, Jennifer Rigby and Emma Farge; Additional reporting by Eduardo Baptista and Lewis Jackson in Beijing; Edited by Shri Navaratnam, Saad Sayeed, Kate Mayberry and Tomasz Janowski
