Trump signs order withdrawing US from WHO, ‘endangering health everywhere’
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Key takeaways:
- President Trump signed an executive order that will withdraw the U.S. from WHO.
- The U.S. is a founding member of WHO and the agency’s largest funder.
President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from WHO, complaining that the agency has unfairly demanded too much in funding.
“Ooh, that’s a big one,” Trump said in the Oval Office as an aide handed him the executive order — one of a handful he signed Monday after being inaugurated for his second term.
The order revoked a letter that Joe Biden sent WHO at the start of his presidency in 2021 reversing Trump’s announcement in July 2020 that the U.S. would withdraw its support.
‘Onerous payments’
The U.S. helped found WHO in 1948 and has been one of the global health agency’s largest funders. The relationship has been heavily criticized by Trump and his allies for years.
When Trump first announced plans to pull funding from WHO during the COVID-19 pandemic, he cited concerns about the agency’s relationship with China and its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Although the new order signed by Trump on Monday also referenced those and other reasons, the document mostly focused on the proportion of WHO’s funding that is paid by the U.S., especially in relation to China.
WHO had asked the U.S. to contribute around $130 million per year in 2024 and 2025, according to documents posted online. That represents 22% of the approximately $578 million the agency requested annually from member states, according to a breakdown by WHO’s executive board.
By comparison, China was asked to contribute around 15%. No other country was asked to contribute more than 8%.
“WHO continues to demand unfairly onerous payments from the United States, far out of proportion with other countries’ assessed payments,” Trump’s executive order says. “China, with a population of 1.4 billion, has 300 percent of the population of the United States, yet contributes nearly 90 percent less to the WHO.”
‘Endangering health everywhere’
As it did last time, the administration’s decision to withdraw from WHO elicited rebukes from public health experts who worry that it imperils global public health and makes the U.S. less safe.
In a statement, the co-faculty directors of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University said the decision “risks undermining decades of progress.”
“U.S. funding has been instrumental in supporting the WHO’s pandemic response. Without it, the organization’s ability to address global health emergencies will be significantly weakened, endangering health everywhere,” said Michele Bratcher Goodwin, SJD, LLM, and Lawrence O. Gostin, JD.
The announcement was “unsurprising, but deeply disappointing,” said Jennifer B. Nuzzo, DrPH, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health.
“It means the U.S. will lose the ability to shape and define priorities for the organization’s critical work,” Nuzzo told Healio.
Although Trump has criticized WHO’s relationship with China, the U.S.’s withdrawal will likely allow China to increase its influence over the agency, Nuzzo and Amesh A. Adalja, MD, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, both said.
Additionally, Adalja said the decision “will put the U.S. in a position where it will be without full situational awareness of infectious disease outbreaks that are occurring globally, [and] will hamper the ability of the CDC to be most effective in global health.”
“I can't think of one way that this makes America safer and more secure, and I can't think of one way that it advances our national interests,” Gostin told Healio.
“Trump can shut down the southern border against immigrants, but you can't shut the border against a pathogen,” he said. “We rely on a vast network of WHO laboratories and government agencies to provide us with surveillance data and pathogen samples to allow us to detect outbreaks early, respond to them, and also to develop vaccines and treatments. We used to be first in line to get vaccines and treatments, but we might find we’re near the end of the line.”
What’s next?
The executive order “starts a process that will take 1 year for withdrawal to occur,” Adalja noted. Gostin said the order could be blocked in the courts and he has threatened to file a lawsuit to stop the withdrawal.
“I believe that he shouldn't be able to unilaterally withdraw, that he needs congressional approval, and that something this monumental shouldn’t be made on the president's whim or the president's grudge against WHO,” Gostin said.
“It wouldn’t make America stronger. It would make America alone and fragile,” he said. “It’s a win-win if the United States stays in and WHO becomes stronger and more resilient and more accountable.”
In a statement, WHO cited its longtime collaboration with the U.S. as instrumental in eradicating smallpox and nearly eradicating polio and suggested there may be a way to repair the relationship.
“With the participation of the United States and other member states, WHO has over the past 7 years implemented the largest set of reforms in its history, to transform our accountability, cost-effectiveness, and impact in countries. This work continues,” WHO said. “We hope the United States will reconsider and we look forward to engaging in constructive dialogue to maintain the partnership between the USA and WHO, for the benefit of the health and well-being of millions of people around the globe.”
References:
- Statement from the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law on the United States’ withdrawal from the World Health Organization. https://oneill.law.georgetown.edu/press/statement-from-the-oneill-institute-for-national-and-global-health-law-on-the-united-states-withdrawal-from-the-world-health-organization/. Published Jan. 21, 2025. Accessed Jan. 21, 2025.
- White House. Withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/withdrawing-the-united-states-from-the-worldhealth-organization/. Issued Jan. 20, 2025. Accessed Jan. 21, 2025.
- WHO. Assessed contributions payable by members states and associate members 2024-2025. https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/ac-docs-2024-2025/assessed-contributions-payable-by-member-states-and-associate-members-in-2024-25.pdf. Published May 9, 2024. Accessed Jan. 21, 2025.
- WHO comments on United States’ announcement of intent to withdraw. https://www.who.int/news/item/21-01-2025-who-comments-on-united-states--announcement-of-intent-to-withdraw. Published Jan. 21, 2025. Accessed Jan. 21, 2025.
- WHO. Scale of assessments for 2024/2025 (EB152.R3). https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/ac-docs-2024-2025/scale-of-assessment-2024-25.pdf. Published May 9, 2024. Accessed Jan. 21, 2025.
Collapse
White House. Withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/withdrawing-the-united-states-from-the-worldhealth-organization/. Issued Jan. 20, 2025. Accessed Jan. 21, 2025.
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts