President Trump Withdraws US from World Health Organization

The move means the US will leave the United Nations health agency in 12 months and stop all financial contributions to its work. The United States is by far the WHO’s biggest financial backer, contributing around 18 percent of its overall funding.

The text of Monday’s executive order cites 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,” as reasons for the US withdrawal.

“That’s a big one,” Trump remarked to an aide as he signed the executive order, referring to his 2020 decision to withdraw from the World Health Organization. He expressed his belief that the U.S. was contributing too much financially to the organization in comparison to other nations.

In 2020, Trump had also repeatedly accused the WHO of enabling China in allegedly covering up the origins of COVID-19, which he claimed contributed to its widespread impact.

Dr. Ashish Jha, who served as the White House COVID-19 response coordinator under the Biden administration, criticized Trump’s decision to withdraw from the WHO in his second term, calling it a “strategic error.”

“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 said in an interview with CNN on Monday.

He predicted that China would step up for the organisation in the absence of US funding and leadership, which could, in turn, “give China more political influence around the world.”