Trump Signs Order to Remove U.S. from World Health Organization
On Jan. 20, during his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order announcing his intention to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization, citing the “organization’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, and other global health crises, its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states.”
In response, the organization posted a statement to its website, which began thus: “The World Health Organization regrets the announcement that the United States of America intends to withdraw from the Organization. WHO plays a crucial role in protecting the health and security of the world’s people, including Americans, by addressing the root causes of disease, building stronger health systems, and detecting, preventing and responding to health emergencies, including disease outbreaks, often in dangerous places where others cannot go. The United States was a founding member of WHO in 1948 and has participated in shaping and governing WHO’s work ever since, alongside 193 other Member States, including through its active participation in the World Health Assembly and Executive Board. For over seven decades, WHO and the USA have saved countless lives and protected Americans and all people from health threats. Together, we ended smallpox, and together we have brought polio to the brink of eradication. American institutions have contributed to and benefited from membership of WHO.” The full statement can be found here.
The organization’s “About” section on its website states that “The World Health Organization leads and champions global efforts to achieve better health for all. By connecting countries, people and partners, we strive to give everyone, everywhere an equal chance at a safe and healthy life. From emerging epidemics such as COVID-19 and Zika to the persistent threat of communicable diseases including HIV, malaria and tuberculosis and chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer, we bring together 194 countries and work on the frontlines in 150+ locations to confront the biggest health challenges of our time and measurably advance the well-being of the world’s people.”
In a news report published late on Monday, The New York Times’s Sheryl Gay Stolberg wrote that “The move was not unexpected. Mr. Trump has been railing against the W.H.O. since 2020, when he attacked the agency over its approach to the coronavirus pandemic and threatened to withhold United States funding from it. In July 2020, Mr. Trump took formal steps to withdraw from the agency. But after he lost the 2020 election, the threat did not materialize. On his first day in office, Jan. 20, 2021, former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. blocked it from going into effect.”
Stolberg also noted that “Leaving the W.H.O. would mean, among other things, that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would have no access to the global data that the agency provides. When China characterized the genetic sequence of the novel coronavirus in 2020, it released the information to W.H.O., which shared it with other nations. More recently, the W.H.O. has become a target of conservatives over its work on a “pandemic treaty” to strengthen pandemic preparedness and set legally binding policies for member countries on surveillance of pathogens, rapid sharing of outbreak data, and building up local manufacturing and supply chains for vaccines and treatments, among others. Talks on the treaty broke down last year. In the United States, some Republican lawmakers viewed the agreement as a threat to American sovereignty.”
Meanwhile, CNN’s Betsy Klein wrote on Jan. 21 that Trump made an impromptu comment while signing the order in the Oval Office on Monday. “’That’s a big one,’ Trump told an aide as he began to sign the executive order, pointing to his 2020 decision and his belief that the US was paying too much money to the organization compared to other countries. In 2020, Trump also consistently accused the organization of aiding China in allegedly covering up the origins of Covid-19 and allowing its spread,” she wrote.
Klein was able to reach Ashish Jha, M.D., who served as President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 response coordinator beginning in March 2022, and who currently is Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. “WHO is a pretty essential organization — and with America’s withdrawal, it creates a political vacuum that only one country can fill — and that is China,” Jha told Klein on Monday, and, she wrote, “He predicted that China will step up for the organization in the absence of US funding and leadership, which could, in turn, ‘give China more political influence around the world.’”
Klein also quote a tweet on the platform X by a noted public health law professor. “Lawrence Gostin, a public health law professor at Georgetown University, said in a post on X that Trump’s pulling out of the WHO is ‘the most momentous of all” of Trump’s executive actions Monday,’” she wrote, and quoted him as saying that “It’s a cataclysmic presidential decision. Withdrawal is a grievous wound to world health, but a still deeper wound to the U.S.”
Klein noted that “Jha warned that withdrawing from the WHO weakens the organization because it relies heavily on US staff and expertise, particularly in tracking global influenza.”
And, she wrote, “Trump’s executive action calls on the secretary of state and the director of the Office of Management and Budget to ‘pause the future transfer of any United States Government funds, support, or resources’ for the WHO. However, it takes a year to fully withdraw from the body, and there is an obligation for the US to continue funding it for a year.”
Still, she noted, Jha told her, “But who’s going to enforce the obligation? Is Donald Trump going to be cowed by global norms around these things?”
And she quoted a further tweet by Gostin who said in a later post that the action is “riddled with legal & factual errors. Trump isn’t waiting a year as Congress required. He’s unraveling US engagement & funding now. That’s unlawful & a grave strategic error,” he added.