Trump orders US out of World Health Organization – National

The United States will leave the country World Health OrganisationChair Donald Trump said Monday, saying the global health agency had mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic and other international health crises.

Trump said the WHO had failed to act independently of the “undue political influence of WHO member states” and demanded “unfairly burdensome payments” from the US that were disproportionate to the amounts paid by other, larger countries , such as China, were provided.

“World Health ripped us off, everyone ripped off the United States. It’s not going to happen again,” Trump said as he signed an executive order on the withdrawal, shortly after his inauguration for a second term.

The WHO said on Tuesday that it regretted the move by its main donor country.

“We hope that the United States will reconsider, and we really hope that there will be a constructive dialogue for the benefit of everyone, for Americans but also for people around the world,” WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told reporters in Geneva.

The measure imposes a 12-month notice period for the US to leave the United Nations health agency and stop all financial contributions to its work. The United States is by far the largest funder of the WHO, contributing approximately 18 percent of its total funding. The WHO’s most recent two-year budget, for 2024-2025, was $6.8 billion.

The US departure is likely to jeopardize programs across the organization, according to several experts both inside and outside the WHO, particularly the fight against tuberculosis, the world’s leading killer of infectious diseases, as well as HIV/AIDS and other health emergencies. health field.

“This is the darkest day for global health that I have ever seen,” said Lawrence Gostin, professor of global health at Georgetown University in Washington and director of the WHO Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. “Trump could be sowing the seeds for the next pandemic.”

Trump’s order stated that the administration would halt negotiations on the WHO pandemic treaty while the withdrawal is ongoing. U.S. government personnel working with WHO will be recalled and reassigned, and the administration will seek partners to take over necessary WHO activities, according to the order.

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The administration will revise, repeal and replace the 2024 U.S. Global Health Security Strategy as soon as possible, the order said.

The WHO’s second-largest donor is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, although most of that funding goes toward polio eradication. CEO Mark Suzman said on X that the foundation would remain committed to strengthening, not weakening, the WHO. The second largest state donor in terms of combined mandatory and voluntary contributions is Germany, which accounts for about three percent of WHO funding.

Germany’s health minister said on Tuesday that Berlin hoped to talk Trump out of the movement, while the European Union expressed concern.

When asked about Trump’s decision, China’s Foreign Ministry told a regular news conference on Tuesday that the WHO’s role in global health governance should only be strengthened and not weakened.

“China will continue to support WHO in fulfilling its responsibilities and deepen international cooperation in public health,” said ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun.

Trump’s withdrawal from the WHO is not unexpected. He took steps to quit the body in 2020, during his first term as president, accusing the WHO of aiding China’s efforts to “mislead the world” about the origins of COVID.

The WHO strongly denies the allegation and says it continues to pressure Beijing to share data to determine whether COVID emerged from human contact with infected animals or from research into similar viruses in a local laboratory.

Under US 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