Trump Withdraws US From WHO on First Day in Office

A man enters the headquarters of the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, on June 15, 2021. Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Newly-inaugurated President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Monday withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO) and halting U.S. funding to the United Nations body.

The order cited the WHO’s “mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, and other global health crises” as reasons behind the U.S. withdrawal.

It also stated that the WHO failed to “adopt urgently needed reforms” and was unable to demonstrate independence from “the inappropriate political influence” of member states.

The order noted “unfairly onerous payments” by the United States to support the international organization, saying that these contributions were “far out of proportion with other countries’ assessed payments.”

“China, with a population of 1.4 billion, has 300 percent of the population of the United States, yet contributes nearly 90 percent less to the WHO,” it stated.

Trump initiated his first withdrawal process from the WHO in 2020 in response to China’s coverup of human-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2 at the start of what became the COVID-19 global pandemic. President Joe Biden reversed that decision upon taking office in 2021.

The latest order states that the Trump administration will request to the United Nations that the presidential letter that retracted the 2020 withdrawal notification be revoked.

The United States is the largest contributor to WHO, having contributed about $1.28 billion during the 2022-2023 biennium, according to the organization’s website. It stated that U.S. experts supported nearly half of WHO joint external evaluation missions last year.

Trump’s order will halt future U.S. funding and support to the WHO. Negotiations with the WHO on pandemic agreement and amendments to the International Health Regulations will be suspended while the withdrawal process is ongoing, and any actions taken regarding those amendments “will have no binding force on the United States,” the order says.

The White House said the U.S. government will find alternative international partners to assume the necessary activities previously carried out by the WHO and recall U.S. personnel working in any capacity with the organization.

According to a 1948 joint resolution by Congress, the United States reserves the right to withdraw from the WHO on a one-year notice, provided that “the financial obligations of the United States to the organization shall be met in full for the organization’s current fiscal year.”

The Epoch Times reached out to the WHO for comment but did not hear back as of publication time.

During a press briefing in Geneva last month, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the organization’s relationship with the United States has been “a good model partnership.”

“[We] have been partnering for many years, and we believe that will be the case. And I believe the U.S. leaders understand that the United States cannot be safe unless the rest of the world is safe,” he told reporters.

COVID Response

The organization has faced criticism for its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A December 2024 report by the House Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic described the WHO’s response to the pandemic as “an abject failure” due to its yielding to pressure from the Chinese Communist Party and placing “China’s political interests ahead of its international duties.”

The report stated that Taiwan notified the WHO on Dec. 31, 2019, about “atypical pneumonia cases” reported in Wuhan and asked the agency to investigate, but the organization ignored the warnings.

The report said “the initial mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic not only potentially caused the further spread of the virus, but it created a situation where people lost trust in the global public health organization.”

The first COVID-19 infections were recorded in late 2019 in Wuhan and CCP officials have claimed that the virus was first transmitted at a wet market in the city.

It wasn’t until over three years later that Tedros, in March 2023, called on China to be transparent in sharing its data and investigation results regarding the origins of the virus.

Jack Phillips and Reuters contributed to this report.