IT’S OFFICIAL: US Formally Exits World Health Organization, Locking In Trump’s Break From Global Health Body
The United States has officially завершed its withdrawal from the World Health Organization, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office in 2025 declaring the United States’ intent to leave the WHO, citing what he described as the organization’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic along with other concerns, including “onerous payments” that he said were disproportionate to contributions made by other member countries.
Nearly one year later, the Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of State confirmed that the withdrawal process has now been completed.
The United States had been a member of the WHO since the organization’s founding in 1948. The agency operates under the umbrella of the United Nations and is tasked with coordinating international public health initiatives, including monitoring disease outbreaks and responding to global health emergencies.
Administration officials say the decision to leave was driven primarily by dissatisfaction with the WHO’s response to COVID-19 and its relationship with China.
“The WHO delayed declaring a global public health emergency and a pandemic during the early stages of COVID-19, costing the world critical weeks as the virus spread,” HHS said in a statement announcing the formal withdrawal. “During that period, WHO leadership echoed and praised China’s response despite evidence of early underreporting, suppression of information and delays in confirming human-to-human transmission.”
During a media briefing Thursday, a senior HHS official emphasized that the United States intends to remain at the forefront of global public health efforts despite leaving the organization.
The official noted that while the U.S. had funded as much as 25 percent of the WHO’s budget, no American has ever served as the organization’s director, contrasting that with countries that contribute significantly less but exert influence within the agency.
The United States is “walking away” from international bodies that “fail the United States,” the official said, while maintaining that it is not stepping back from “being a global health leader.” The official pointed to the State Department’s signing of multiyear bilateral Global Health Cooperation agreements with dozens of countries in December 2025 and said additional announcements are expected.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivered a prerecorded address to the World Health Assembly in May 2025 sharply criticizing the organization, saying it had become “mired in bureaucratic bloat, entrenched paradigms, conflicts of interest and international power politics.”
“While the United States has provided the lion’s share of the organization’s funding historically, other countries such as China have exerted undue influence over its operations in ways that serve their own interests and not particularly the interests of the global public,” he said.
“Not only has the WHO capitulated to political pressure from China, it’s also failed to maintain an organization characterized by transparency and fair governance,” Kennedy continued. “The WHO often acts like it has forgotten that its members must remain accountable to their own citizens and not to transnational or corporate interests.”
Trump first initiated a withdrawal from the WHO during his earlier administration in 2020, a move that drew fierce criticism from Democrats who argued that exiting the organization would weaken international disease monitoring and leave the United States more vulnerable to future pandemics.
Then–House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the decision “true senselessness” at the time, warning that “millions of lives” were at stake.
The announcement of the completed withdrawal comes as President Trump is in Davos attending the World Economic Forum, a visit marked by his continued pressure on European leaders to reach an agreement granting the United States control over Greenland.
{Matzav.com}
