Louisiana has become the first state in the nation to sever ties with the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations (U.N.) and the World Economic Forum (WEF).
On May 29, Louisiana’s Gov. Jeff Landry signed a law that blocks the three organizations from having any “jurisdiction or power in the state.”
The legislation also bans any towns in Louisiana from enforcing any “rule, regulation, fee, tax, policy, or mandate of any kind” from WHO, the U.N., and WEF.
The bill (HB133) was passed unanimously by the state senate in late March and by a vote of 69–22 by the House on May 15 in the Republican-led trifecta state.
The move comes three years after President Joe Biden, in one of his first acts in office, reversed President Donald Trump’s policy that cut all U.S. ties with WHO over its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It also comes just days after the globally-crafted Pandemic Treaty, which has been in the works for two years, was tabled during this week’s World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland.
The treaty is a proposal to create a global response to future pandemics like COVID-19.
According to WHO, the move to table it by the assembly, composed of 194 member nations, came after its International Negotiating Body (INB) failed to “reach consensus on the text” of the treaty.
The INB wrote in its May 24 rejection of the global plan “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.”
Louisiana’s move to sever the jurisdictional authority of WHO and the U.N. comes just two weeks after it joined 24 other U.S. states in a coalition to cut funding to the pro-Palestinian group United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
The agency has longstanding ties to both organizations.
In making the announcement, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill charged that UNRWA “has aided terrorism and encouraged the growth of anti-Semitic hate.”
“Tax dollars from the hard-working men and women of Louisiana should not be funding an organization tied to the terror organization Hamas.
“I join my fellow attorneys general in calling for the United States Congress to permanently ban American funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency,” Ms. Murrill said in a statement.
According to her office, the United States paid $344 million in taxpayer dollars to UNRWA in 2022.
According to WHO’s own figures, the United States contributed $700 million to the organization in 2021 and another $280 million earmarked by the Biden administration toward combating the COVID-19 pandemic.
The global organization described the United States as its third largest funding source and expressed gratitude towards several agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
In April, after the senate passed the bill to sever Louisiana’s ties with the world’s three top health organizations, one of its co-sponsors Louisiana Sen. Valerie Hodges (R-Livingston) told The Epoch Times the main goal of the move was to safeguard against foreign countries dictating healthcare mandates to U.S. citizens.
“We’re not living under a dictatorship and that’s pretty much what these groups want. They want to dictate American policies. So, what we’re doing is we’re putting safeguards in place to keep the people of Louisiana safe,” Ms. Hodges said.
The Louisiana law closely mimics a pending federal bill to end funding of WEF, a private nonprofit that has deep ties to WHO.
One of their connections is an emergency task force formed in 2020 in response to the coronavirus outbreak.
A stated goal of the task force was to raise $12 billion to fund the development of a COVID-19 vaccine.
The bill to end funding to WEF—called the Defend Davos Act—was originally introduced in 2022 after President Biden lifted President Trump’s funding freeze on WHO.
In January, Republicans including its original main sponsor Congressman Scott Perry (R-Pa.), reintroduced the bill.
The bill is named after Davos, Switzerland, the venue for the WEF’s annual conference.
In a press release on the bill’s reintroduction, Mr. Perry described the conference as an event that “brings together CEOs, world leaders, and other officials to discuss elitist, dystopian ideas like global solidarity and eating bugs to solve world hunger.”
“Throughout the years, the U.S. has spent millions to fund the Forum and its anti-American conference,” he said.
This year, the WEF conference took place in January.
The WEF was founded by wealthy Switzerland-based businessman Klaus Schwab.
In 2020, in discussing the need to advance his group’s agenda, Mr. Schwab hailed President Biden’s election over President Trump in 2020 as providing the “necessary steps which we need for the 21st century.”
Opposite views between Republicans and Democrats on what the U.S. ties should be with groups like WHO and WEF have only continued during the presidential campaign season.
In December, major Trump ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said at a hearing by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus that she expects it is “very likely” the former president will once again institute a policy to cut ties with WHO if re-elected.
Last month, meanwhile, Principal Deputy National Security Adviser Jonathan Finer met with WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to reaffirm—a White House statement said—“the United States’ commitment to a successful conclusion of the International Health Regulations (IHR) and Pandemic Accord negotiations in the coming weeks.”
The IHR is a unique set of legally binding rules that WHO uses to set the very international health mandates the state of Louisiana has seceded itself from.
