The executive order cites the global health agency’s ’mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China.’
On his second term’s first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO), making good on a project from his first administration.
Trump’s Jan. 20 order halted U.S. funding to the United Nations body, citing the WHO’s “mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China,” as well as other global health concerns.
Negotiations with the group about the pandemic agreement and International Health Regulations will be suspended while the withdrawal is taking place.
Because of the 1948 joint resolution by Congress, the United States has the right to withdraw from the WHO, but it must give a one-year notice. The resolution also requires the United States to fulfill “financial obligations” to the WHO for the current fiscal year.
The Largest WHO Funder
The United States is currently the largest WHO funder, contributing about $1.28 billion during 2022–2023, the last reported year on the organization’s website. That equates to almost half of the WHO’s joint external evaluation missions for the last fiscal year.
The 2024–2025 fiscal year is shaping up similarly, with the United States serving as the largest donor by far, contributing an estimated $988 million, or roughly 14 percent of the WHO’s $6.9 billion budget.
Documents obtained by The Associated Press (AP) show that the U.S. covers about 95 percent of the WHO’s work on tuberculosis in Europe and about 60 percent in Africa and the Western Pacific and that the WHO’s Europe office is more than 8 percent reliant on U.S. contributions.
Additionally, American funding provides “the backbone of many of WHO’s large-scale emergency operations,” covering up to 40 percent of that funding.
WHO Response
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described relations with the United States as “a good model partnership” during a press briefing in Geneva in December 2024.
“[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.
