The United States will leave World Health OrganizationPresident Donald Trump said Monday, claiming the global health agency has mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic and other international health crises.
Trump said the WHO failed to act independently of “inappropriate political influence from WHO member states” and demanded “unfairly burdensome payments” from the United States that were disproportionate to the sums provided by other countries. other larger countries, such as China.
“Global Health ripped us off, everyone else ripped off the United States. This will not happen again,” Trump said while signing an executive order on withdrawal shortly after he was inaugurated for a second term.
The WHO said on Tuesday it regretted the decision of its main donor country.
“We hope that the United States will reconsider its decision and we really hope that there will be a constructive dialogue for the benefit of all, for the Americans but also for the people of the whole world,” declared the spokesperson for the WHO, Tarik Jasarevic, to journalists in Geneva.
The move sets a 12-month notice period for the United States to leave the U.N. health agency and cease all financial contributions to its work. The United States is by far the WHO’s largest donor, contributing about 18 percent of its overall funding. WHO’s most recent biennial budget, for 2024-2025, was $6.8 billion.
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The U.S. departure is likely to endanger programs across the organization, according to several experts inside and outside the WHO, including those fighting tuberculosis, the most the world’s major deadly infectious disease, as well as against HIV/AIDS and other health emergencies.
“This is the darkest day I have ever seen for global health,” said Lawrence Gostin, professor of global health at Georgetown University in Washington and director of the WHO Collaborating Center on Law. national and global health. “Trump could sow the seeds of the next pandemic. »
Trump’s order states that the administration will cease negotiations on the WHO pandemic treaty while the withdrawal is underway. U.S. government personnel 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 government will review, rescind, and replace the U.S. Global Health Security Strategy for 2024 as soon as possible, the order states.
The WHO’s second-largest donor is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, although most of that funding goes toward polio eradication. Its chief executive, Mark Suzman, said on X that the foundation would continue to advocate for strengthening, not weakening, the WHO. The second largest public donor in terms of mandatory contributions and voluntary contributions combined is Germany, which accounts for around 3 percent of WHO funding.
Germany’s health minister said Tuesday that Berlin hoped to dissuade Trump from stepping down, while the European Union expressed concerns.
Asked about Trump’s decision, China’s Foreign Ministry told a regular press briefing on Tuesday that the WHO’s role in global health governance should only be strengthened, not weakened.
“China will continue to support WHO in fulfilling its responsibilities and deepen international cooperation on public health,” said Guo Jiakun, a ministry spokesperson.
Trump’s withdrawal from the WHO is not unexpected. He took steps to leave the body in 2020, during his first term as president, accusing the WHO of supporting China’s efforts to “mislead the world” about the origins of COVID.
The WHO vigorously denies the allegation and says it continues to pressure Beijing to share data to determine whether COVID originated from human contact with infected animals or virus research similar in a local laboratory.
Under U.S. law, leaving WHO requires one year’s notice and payment of any outstanding fees. Before the US withdrawal could be completed last time, Joe Biden won the presidential election and ended it 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; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Saad Sayeed, Kate Mayberry and Tomasz Janowski