US Officially Exits World Health Organization

Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times,

America is officially out of the World Health Organization (WHO).

“Today, the United States withdrew from the World Health Organization, freeing itself from its constraints, as President [Donald] Trump promised on his first day in office,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr., declared in a Jan. 22 joint statement.

“This action responds to the WHO’s failures during the COVID-19 pandemic and seeks to rectify the harm from those failures inflicted on the American people.”

This is the latest move by an administration that has been highly skeptical of membership in a number of global organizations that, in Trump’s view, and that of many conservatives, compromise the sovereignty of the United States and operate counter to America’s interests. In January 2025, Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Accord, which aims to limit global warming, and on Jan. 7, he withdrew en masse from 66 U.N.-sponsored climate and social justice organizations, among them the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Trump’s decision to quit the WHO is “due to the organization’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, and other global health crises, its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states,” a White House statement declared.

In this week’s executive order, dated Jan. 20, Trump directed that all U.S. funding for the WHO cease and all official U.S. representatives to the U.N. health subsidiary be recalled.

Under the terms of the original agreement establishing U.S. membership, the United States must give the WHO one year’s notice in order to withdraw from the organization. Trump gave such notice to the WHO upon taking office in 2025.

At that time, the WHO responded that it “regrets the announcement that the United States of America intends to withdraw from the Organization.”

“WHO plays a crucial role in protecting the health and security of the world’s people, including Americans, by addressing the root causes of disease, building stronger health systems, and detecting, preventing and responding to health emergencies, including disease outbreaks, often in dangerous places where others cannot go,” the WHO stated. 

Another condition for withdrawal under the original agreement is that the United States pay all unpaid dues it owes to the WHO, which is currently $278 million for the years 2024 and 2025. However, the Trump administration has stated that it will make no additional payments to the WHO. 

“The American people have paid more than enough,” a State Department spokesperson stated on Thursday.

America’s withdrawal has not been officially accepted by the WHO.

“The WHO refuses to hand over the American flag that hung in front of it, arguing it has not approved our withdrawal and, in fact, claims that we owe it compensation,” Rubio and Kennedy stated. “From our days as its primary founder, primary financial backer, and primary champion until now, our final day, the insults to America continue.”

Trump first attempted to withdraw the United States from the WHO in 2020 at the end of his first term; however, President Joe Biden reversed that move upon taking office in 2021. The Biden administration was also active in pushing for the United States to sign on to the WHO’s Pandemic Agreement, which, together with its International Health Regulations, was intended to give the WHO sweeping new powers to set policy for all member nations during pandemics and other “health emergencies” that the WHO might declare at its discretion. 

As part of America’s withdrawal from the WHO, Trump’s executive order stated that America will withdraw from negotiations of these agreements and that they “will have no binding force on the United States.”

Originally founded in 1948, the WHO included 194 nations among its members, prior to America’s withdrawal. The United States joined in 1948, following a joint resolution of Congress signed by President Harry Truman. 

The United States was required to fund 22 percent of the WHO’s budget, and has given the organization an average of $237 million per year between 2012 and 2024.