NEW YORK – President Donald Trump withdraws the United States from the World Health Organization for a period second timethe White House announced Monday evening.
THE decree of the first day responds to Trump’s election promise to reject global institutions. Health experts fear this will isolate the United States, with consequences for pandemic and disease response as well as diplomatic relations around the world.
The United States is and has always been the largest donor to the global health agency headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The WHO, part of the United Nations, is responsible for preparing for and responding to health emergencies. The United States has heavily influenced the agency since its creation after World War II.
Trump criticized the WHO for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, even as his administration faced scrutiny for slow response to crisis. In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, he began the process of withdrawing from the WHO.
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Despite his promise, he failed to do so under U.S. law governing the withdrawal schedule and funding obligations to the agency. Ancient President Joe Biden reversed Trump’s decision after taking office and restoring funding to the WHO.
Trump’s executive order – on the first day of his second term rather than the final year of his first presidency – allows him to actually carry out his decision.
The order states that the United States is withdrawing “due to the organization’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan, China, and other global health crises, its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms and its inability to demonstrate its independence from inappropriate measures.” the political influence of WHO Member States. He also cited the “unfairly burdensome payments” the United States made to support the organization.
Under the Biden administration, the United States has continued its role as the main funder of the agency, which has a budget of $6.8 billion for the current fiscal year. Nearly a fifth of WHO’s 2023 budget came from the United States
The United States has been part of the WHO since 1948, the same year the organization was founded, and its departure would make the country the only major power not to be a member of the 194-country body.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the agency will do everything to cooperate with the new Trump administration to continue strengthening global health security, said Tarik Jašarević, WHO spokesperson, in an email. The partnership between WHO and the United States has “protected and saved millions of lives in America and around the world,” Jašarević said, quoting the director-general.
“Serious strategic error,” say health experts
Trump’s announcement was expected by health experts. Publicly and privately, officials and scholars have expressed concerns about the decision, which they say endangers the health of the nation and the world.
In December, Dr. Ashish Jha, Biden’s former White House COVID-19 response coordinator, called it a “catastrophic mistake” for the global community and a “terrible mistake” for the United States.
“This is going to be a serious strategic mistake that will make America less healthy and less safe,” said Lawrence Gostin, a global public health expert and faculty director of Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for Health. national and global health law, to USA TODAY. .
“The withdrawal itself will isolate the United States,” Gostin said. “It will isolate us diplomatically, and it will isolate us in the response to the pandemic.”
How will the United States withdraw from the WHO?
Trump’s order will require an arduous unraveling of U.S. and global health institutions woven together for 75 years.
WHO constitution, written in New Yorkdoes not have a clear exit method for Member States. A joint resolution Congress decided in 1948 that the United States could withdraw with one year’s notice. This, however, is contingent on ensuring that its financial obligations to WHO “will be met in full for the organization’s current financial year.”
The United States is the only member state to have developed such an exit strategy, said WHO’s Jašarević. The former Soviet Union withdrew from the WHO in 1949 during Cold War tensions, but returned years later.
Questions remain about how the United States and the rest of the world will interact and respond to health emergencies in the future.
The United States’ departure from the WHO would significantly weaken the global health agency’s ability to respond to outbreaks, provide surveillance and cooperate closely, Gostin said.
“Our public health agencies would be flying blind,” he said.
For example, the Pan American Health Organization, WHO’s regional office for the Americas, is based in Washington, DC. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has staff at WHO and elsewhere around the world.
The US response alongside the WHO played a key role in combating diseases such as polio, which was nearly eradicated, and HIV/AIDS, as part of a President George W. Bush era schedule this has helped curb transmission in several countries. The Bush program is considered a success both in terms of public health and diplomatic relations.
On an even more technical level, information sharing between the United States and WHO has been essential not only for disease response, but also for pharmaceutical developments to rapidly innovate and create vaccines and treatments that save lives, Gostin said.
Gostin now worries about other emerging diseases and pandemic threats that could make the United States weaker and more vulnerable.
This includes a mpoxwhich killed at least a thousand people in Africa in 2024, and Avian flu is circulating in the United States US authorities have assessed that bird flu poses a “moderate” risk of becoming a pandemic, and that just one or two mutations in circulating bird flu viruses could make it more contagious or more serious in humans.
Gostin cited Operation Warp Speed, the accelerated COVID-19 vaccination effort led by the United States under the first Trump administration. Then the United States provided vaccines to its entire population before offering them to vulnerable people elsewhere, which seemed unfair to many people around the world.
“In the next pandemic,” Gostin said, “we may find ourselves at the back of the pack, on the outside looking in.”