President Donald Trump's order withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization (WHO) has prompted concern that the organization key to fighting global health emergencies will be weakened.
Among the flurry of executive orders on his first day in office was one exiting the WHO as Trump criticized the organization for "mishandling" the COVID-19 pandemic and "unfairly" asking for "onerous" payments from the U.S. Newsweek has contacted the WHO for comment by email.
What Is the World Health Organization?
Established on April 7, 1948, the WHO started work in September that year as a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for public health.
With its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, it is the largest international intergovernmental health organization, and its website says it works with 194 member states across six regions and on the ground in over 150 locations.
The WHO directs global responses to health emergencies and leads efforts to expand universal health coverage. About one-fifth of its budget in 2023, or roughly $1.28 billion, was from the U.S. and went on health emergencies and stopping disease threats from spreading across borders.
Last week, the WHO issued an emergency funding appeal calling for $1.5 billion to respond to 42 ongoing health emergencies.
What Did the WHO Do During COVID?
The WHO helped coordinate the United Nations response to the pandemic. On January 5, 2020, it announced "a pneumonia of unknown cause" in Wuhan, China, and later that month confirmed human-to-human transmission of the disease.
On January 30, the WHO declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and declared the disease a pandemic on March 11.
The WHO was behind the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, to raise funds for the pandemic response, the U.N. COVID-19 Supply Chain Task Force, and trials for investigating treatment.
#WATCH | Washington, DC: US President Donald Trump signs executive order to withdraw US from World Health Organization
"We paid 500 million dollars to World Health Organization when I was here and I terminated it. China with 1.4 billion people, they were paying 39 million. We… pic.twitter.com/xpbPGWNJ0K
Why Has the WHO Drawn Criticism?
Given the origins of the pandemic in China and the diplomatic sensitivity of getting it to cooperate with any response, critics charged the WHO with being too close to Beijing. On January 18, 2021, an independent panel criticized the WHO for not declaring an international emergency sooner and called for its reform.
In May 2020, Trump threatened to withdraw the United States from the WHO if it did not make "substantive improvements" within a month and announced plans to cut ties with the organization, a process that takes 12 months.
But President Joe Biden reversed the decision when he came to office, saying that it plays a key role in fighting public health threats.
Why Does Donald Trump Want the US to Leave the WHO?
Trump's criticism of the WHO stems from his first presidential term. He accused the organization of mismanaging and covering up the pandemic and announced a halt in funding to the WHO on April 14, 2020.
He added that China benefits disproportionately from the WHO, which he implied had known about the dangers of the COVID-19 before taking any action.
The text of Trump's executive order accused the WHO of "mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic" and said that it had failed to adopt "urgently needed reforms" and had not been independent from "inappropriate political influence of WHO member states."
In signing the order, Trump told reporters that the U.S. was paying too much money compared with other countries.
What People Are Saying
President Donald Trump said: "China with 1.4 billion people, they were paying $39 million. We were paying $500 million. It seemed a little unfair to me."
Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told The Hill: "The U.S. withdrawing from the WHO will severely constrain the ability of the U.S. to have situational awareness of infectious disease emergencies occurring all over the world all the time."
Tom Bollyky, director of global health for the Council on Foreign Relations, told Stat News: "Americans have been made less safe by the president's action today."
Lawrence O. Gostin, director of WHO's Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law, told NPR: "This will really leave our agencies—like the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and NIH [National Institutes of Health] flying blind."
What Happens Next
It will take a year for Trump's pledge to become official, but already health experts have warned of its consequences, which include pulling the U.S. out of negotiations for a pandemic agreement.
English (US) ·