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View all search resultsUS set to quit World Health Organization
President Donald Trump gave notice that the US would quit the organization on the first day of his presidency in 2025, via an executive order. Under US law, it has to give one-year notice and pay all outstanding fees before departure.
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World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus gives a press conference on the situation regarding the COVID-19 at Geneva's WHO headquarters on February 24, 2020. Fears of a global coronavirus pandemic deepened on February 24 as new deaths and infections in Europe, the Middle East and Asia triggered more drastic efforts to stop people travelling.
(AFP/Fabrice Coffrini)
T
he US is due to officially exit the World Health Organization on Thursday, in the face of warnings it will hit both US health and global health and also in violation of a US law that requires Washington to pay theUN health agency $260 million in fees that it owes.
President Donald Trump gave notice that the US would quit the organization on the first day of his presidency in 2025, via an executive order. Under US law, it has to give one-year notice and pay all outstanding fees before departure.
On Thursday, a US State Department spokesperson said the WHO's failure to contain, manage and share information had cost the US trillions of dollars and the president had exercised his authority to pause the future transfer of any US government funds, support, or resources to the WHO.
"The American people have paid more than enough to this organization and this economic hit is beyond a down payment on any financial obligations to the organization," the spokesperson said by email.
Over the last year, many global health experts have urged a rethink, including most recently WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“I hope the US will reconsider and rejoin WHO,” he told reporters at a press conference earlier this month. “Withdrawing from the WHO is a lose for the United States, and it’s a lose for the rest of the world.”
The WHO also said that the US has not yet paid the fees it owes for 2024 and 2025. Member states are set to discuss the US departure and how it will be handled at the WHO’s executive board in February, a WHO spokesperson told Reuters by email.
“This is a clear violation of US law,” said Lawrence Gostin, founding director of the O’Neill Institute for Global Health Law at Georgetown University in Washington, a close observer of the WHO. “But Trump is highly likely to get away with it.”
Speaking to Reuters at Davos, Bill Gates – chair of the Gates Foundation, a major funder of global health initiatives and some of the WHO’s work – said he did not expect the US to reconsider in the short-term.
“I don’t think the US will be coming back to WHO in the near future,” he said, adding that when he had an opportunity to advocate for it, he would. “The world needs the World Health Organization.”
