U.S. May Again Move to Withdraw from WHO
- by Marco Cáceres
- Published
- Opinion
The incoming Trump administration plans to withdraw the United States from membership in the World Health Organization (WHO) on Jan. 20, 2025—the first day of President Trump’s second term. The move was originally reported by the Financial Times on Dec. 22, 2024.1 2 3 4 5
“I have it on good authority that he plans to withdraw, probably on Day One or very early in his administration,” said Lawrence Gostin, JD, professor of global health at Georgetown University in Washington, DC and director of the WHO Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. Professor Gostin is a long time advocate of expanding the authority of U.S. and global public health officials. With CDC funding, he was chief architect of the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act (MSEHPA) that, in 2001-2002, re-wrote many state public health laws to give state health officials expanded authority during a public health emergency declaration. 1 2 5 6
“There are lots of people who are going to be part of the inner circle of the administration who do not trust the WHO and want to symbolically show on day one that they are out,” said Ashish Jha, MD, the White House’s COVID-19 response coordinator during the first Trump term.1 3
The intention to exit the WHO is not a new idea. In April 2020, President Trump temporarily froze U.S. funding for the WHO while his administration reviewed U.S. membership in the organization. The U.S. is a top funder of the WHO, and the move followed accusations by Trump that the WHO failed to sound the alarm about the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus early enough for preventive action to be taken by the U.S. and other countries, and that WHO officials conspired with China to cover up the potential threat the virus posed.7 8
Trump followed up with a letter to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus threatening to permanently freeze U.S. funding for the WHO if he did not implement “substantive changes” to his organization in the next 30 days. On May 29, 2020, Trump said publicly that the WHO reforms had not taken place and so he would withdraw the U.S. from the organization.7 Shortly afterword, an official at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reportedly said:
None of us in the administration is under the assumption that this is temporary or will be reversed. This is a fundamental repudiation of the WHO and its failed mission.7
U.S. Notified United Nations of Its Withdrawal from WHO in 2020
On July 7, 2020, the U.S. government officially notified the United Nations of the United States’ withdrawal from the WHO. The notice was submitted to Secretary-General António Guterres and to Congress. The withdrawal was to take effect on July 6, 2021.9 10 11
On Sept. 3, 2020, the White House issued a press statement providing an update on the U.S. transition away from the WHO. In addition to reiterating its reason for withdrawing from the organization and the date that it would take effect, the White House stated:
[S]ince the President’s announcement, the U.S. government has been working to identify partners to assume the activities previously undertaken by WHO. Today, the United States is announcing the next steps with respect to our withdrawal from the WHO and the redirection of American resources. This redirection includes reprogramming the remaining balance of its planned Fiscal Year 2020 assessed WHO contributions to partially pay other UN assessments.
In addition, through July 2021, the United States will scale down its engagement with the WHO, to include recalling the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) detailees from WHO headquarters, regional offices, and country offices, and reassigning these experts. U.S. participation in WHO technical meetings and events will be determined on a case-by-case basis.12
On Jan. 20, 2021, just hours after being sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, President Biden signed an executive order reversing Trump’s withdrawal from the WHO. The withdrawal that was to have been completed on July 6 of that year was nullified.13 14 15
Now, the expectation is that President Trump fully intends to revive his decision to withdraw from the WHO and proceed as quickly to implement it as President Biden did to cancel it.
If you would like to receive an e-mail notice of the most recent articles published in The Vaccine Reaction each week, click here.
Click here to view References:
No comments:
Post a Comment