New York: President Donald Trump has announced he is withdrawing the US from the World Health Organization (WHO), a significant move cutting ties with the United Nations' public health agency on his first day in office.
Trump has long been critical of the WHO, and his administration formally withdrew from the organisation in July 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic continued to spread.
The text of the executive order cites the "organisation'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," as reasons for the US withdrawal.
"That's a big one," Trump told an aide as he began to sign the executive order, pointing to his 2020 decision and his belief that the US was paying too much money to the organization compared to other countries.
The order also said that the WHO "continues to demand unfairly onerous payments" from the US. The plan, which aligns with Trump's long standing criticism of the UN health agency, would mark a dramatic shift in US global health policy and further isolate Washington from international efforts to battle pandemics.
Trump has nominated several critics of the organisation to top public health positions, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic who is up for the post of secretary of Health and Human Services, which oversees all major US health agencies, including the CDC and FDA.
The US President has argued that the agency failed to hold China accountable for the early spread of Covid-19. He has repeatedly called the WHO a puppet of Beijing and vowed to redirect US contributions to domestic health initiatives.
WHO regrets Trump’s decisionNew York: The World Health Organization (WHO) expressed regret over the decision of US President Donald Trump to walk out of the global health body, and hoped the administration will reconsider it. “The World Health Organization regrets the announcement that the United States of America intends to withdraw from the Organization,” the WHO said in a statement. The agency noted that it "hopes the US will reconsider” the decision, “for the benefit of the health and well-being of millions of people around the globe”. The US was a founding member of WHO in 1948. The country is an active participant in the World Health Assembly and Executive Board, alongside 193 other Member States. The WHO noted that in the last 70 years, “WHO and the US have saved countless lives and protected Americans and all people from health threats”. “Together, we ended smallpox, and together we have brought polio to the brink of eradication,” the health agency said that American institutions have both contributed and benefited from membership of the WHO. |
