The United States has officially left the World Health Organization (WHO), after a year of warning that such a move could harm public health in the country and around the world, saying the decision reflects the United Nations health agency's failures in managing the coronavirus pandemic.
On the first day of his presidential term in 2025, President Donald Trump announced, via executive order, that the US would withdraw from the WHO.
According to a statement from the US Departments of Health and State, the United States will cooperate with the organization only on a limited basis in the future to implement the withdrawal.
"We have no plans to participate as observers, nor any plans to rejoin," said a senior public health official.
The US has said it plans to collaborate directly with other countries - rather than through an international organization - on disease surveillance and other public health priorities, Reuters reports.
Under US law, the country was required to provide a one-year notice of withdrawal and pay all outstanding debts – about $260 million – before leaving the organization.
However, a State Department official disputed the claim that the law contains a provision that all debts must be settled before withdrawal.
"The American people have already paid more than enough," a State Department spokesman said in an email earlier on Thursday, Reuters reported.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said in a document released Thursday that the government has suspended its financial contributions to the WHO. Trump, according to an HHS spokesperson, used his authority to pause any future transfer of US government resources to the WHO, because the organization, as stated, has cost the US trillions of dollars.
According to witnesses, the American flag was removed from outside the WHO headquarters in Geneva on Thursday.
In recent weeks, the US has taken steps to leave a number of other United Nations organizations, and some fear that Trump's recently launched "Committee for Peace" could undermine the UN as a whole.
Some WHO critics have also proposed the creation of a new agency to replace the existing one, although a proposal document considered by the Trump administration last year suggested that the US should push for reforms and stronger American leadership within the WHO.
A quick return is unlikely.
Over the past year, numerous global health experts have called for a review of this decision, including WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The WHO also said the US has not yet paid its membership fees for 2024 and 2025. The US withdrawal and how it will be implemented will be discussed at the WHO's executive board in February, a spokesman for the organization said.
“This is a clear violation of U.S. law,” said Lawrence Gostin, founder and director of the O’Neill Institute for Global Health Law at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and a longtime observer of the WHO’s work. “But Trump will likely get away with it.”
Bill Gates, chairman of the Gates Foundation, one of the largest funders of global health initiatives and part of WHO activities, told Reuters in Davos that he did not expect the US to change its decision anytime soon.
Gates said he would continue to advocate for Washington's return to the organization. "The world needs the World Health Organization," he said.
What does this departure mean?
The US withdrawal triggered a financial crisis that has led the WHO to cut its management team in half and reduce its workload, with budget cuts across the agency. Washington has traditionally been by far the largest financial backer of the UN health agency, contributing about 18 percent of its total budget. The WHO will lay off about a quarter of its staff by the middle of this year.
The agency said it had been cooperating with Washington and exchanging information over the past year, but it is unclear what that cooperation will look like in the future.
Global health experts warn that this situation carries risks for the US, the WHO, and the entire world.
"The United States' withdrawal from the WHO could weaken the systems and collaborations the world relies on to detect, prevent and respond to health threats," said Kelly Henning, head of the public health program at the US nonprofit Bloomberg Philanthropies.
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