Trump ordered the US to withdraw from the World Health Organization – National
will leave the United States World Health OrganizationPresident Donald Trump The global health agency has mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic and other international health crises, it said on Monday.
Trump said the WHO did not act independently of “undue political influence by WHO member states” and demanded “unfairly heavy payments” from the United States that were disproportionate to the amounts provided by other, larger countries such as China.
“World Health has ripped us off, everyone has ripped off the United States.” It’s not going to happen anymore,” Trump said shortly after his second term inauguration as he signed the recall order.
On Tuesday, the WHO said it regretted the move from its top donor country.
“We hope that the United States will revisit the issue and we really hope that there will be a constructive dialogue for the benefit of everyone, Americans as well as people around the world,” WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told reporters in Geneva.
The move sets a 12-month notice period for the United States to leave the United Nations health agency and suspend all financial contributions to its work. The United States is WHO’s largest financial supporter, providing about 18 percent of total funding. The WHO’s most recent two-year budget for 2024-2025 was $6.8 billion.
According to a number of 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, the US move could lead to risk programs within the organization.
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“This is the darkest day I’ve ever seen for global health,” said Lawrence Gostin, professor of global health at Georgetown University in Washington and director of WHO’s Collaborating Center for National and Global Health Law. “Trump could sow the seeds for the next pandemic.”
Trump’s order said the administration would suspend negotiations on the WHO pandemic agreement while the withdrawal continues. US government employees working with WHO will be recalled and reassigned, and the government will seek partners to take over necessary WHO activities, according to the order.
The order states that the administration will review, repeal, and replace the US Global Health Security Strategy 2024 as soon as possible.
The next largest donor to the WHO is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, although most of this funding goes to the fight against polio. Its chief executive, Mark Suzman, said at X that the foundation would continue to work so as not to weaken the WHO. The next largest public donor in terms of combined mandatory payments and voluntary contributions is Germany, which accounts for about three percent of WHO funding.
Germany’s health minister said on Tuesday that Berlin hoped to dissuade Trump from the move as the European Union expressed concern.
Asked about Trump’s decision at a press conference on Tuesday, China’s Foreign Ministry said the WHO’s role in global health governance should be strengthened, not weakened.
“China will continue to support the WHO in fulfilling its obligations and deepen international cooperation in the field of public health,” said ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun.
Trump’s withdrawal from the WHO is not unexpected. He moved 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 rejects the claim and says it continues to press Beijing to share data to determine whether COVID originated from human contact with infected animals or from research on similar viruses at a local laboratory.
US law requires a one-year notice period and payment of any outstanding fees to withdraw from WHO. Before the US withdrawal was completed for the last time, Joe Biden won the presidential election and ended the election on his first day in office on January 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 Saeed, Kate Mayberry and Tomasz Janowski
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