The Trump administration announced on Thursday that the United States has officially withdrawn from the World Health Organization (WHO), leaving the agency without one of its biggest donors. The organization’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, denies the U.S. claims for why they are withdrawing and says it is a huge loss for them and the world.
Exiting the World Health Organization
The United Nations says there are certain criteria a country must meet to leave the World Health Organization, including paying the remaining dues that are owed and providing a one-year notice of departure. When President Donald Trump was inaugurated in 2025, he signed multiple executive orders and among them was the required 1-year notice of withdrawal from the WHO. However, the United States still owes more than $270 million to the WHO for 2024-2025.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of State announced their departure from WHO, and a senior HHS official said it is because the organization “strayed from its core mission and has acted contrary to the U.S. interests in protecting the U.S. public on multiple occasions.”
The HHS critiqued WHO’s actions during the COVID-19 pandemic, claiming the delayed response to declaring it a global health emergency caused many of the fatalities. They also claim Trump was unfairly ridiculed for his part in shutting down travel from specific foreign countries during the first few weeks, and when he criticized the WHO for being too “China-centric.“
However, the main contributing factor in this decision, HHS argued, is that other countries in the WHO contribute significantly less monetarily than the United States, but there has never been an American director-general of the organization. And as of now, the U.S. owes millions of dollars that the senior HHS official argues is not an obligation under the WHO’s constitution, adopted in 1948.
Health Experts Rebuttal
Public health experts disagree with Trump’s decision to withdraw from the WHO, claiming it will put the United States at a disadvantage and will affect the response time to health crises.
“The U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization is a shortsighted and misguided abandonment of our global health commitments. Global cooperation and communication are critical to keep our own citizens protected because germs do not respect borders,” the president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, Ronald Nahass, told ABC News.
Nahass added that the withdrawal will impede the United States efforts to surveil “emerging threats such as Ebola” or “the persistent burden of annual flu outbreaks,” but also the ability to match vaccines to circulating virus strains.
“Withdrawing from the World Health Organization is scientifically reckless. It fails to acknowledge the fundamental natural history of infectious diseases. Global cooperation is not a luxury; it is a biological necessity,” Nahass said.
Goodbye to The WHO
The senior HHS official reassured the public that the United States will continue leading the world in public health and that their department has more than 2,000 staff members in 63 countries, and has obtained bilateral agreements with hundreds of others. The official said there are plans in motion to fill the gaps in other areas WHO contributed to, such as surveillance, diagnostics, and response to outbreaks.
A WHO spokesperson said the withdrawal was “on the agenda of the upcoming Executive Board meeting,” scheduled for early February. “The Secretariat will act on advice and guidance of our governing bodies accordingly.” At this time, the HHS says the U.S. has no intentions of rejoining the WHO or participating as an observer, including the flu shot meeting next month, which the U.S. has always played a huge role in.
