Former President Joe Biden undid President Donald Trump’s first executive order to withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO) on July 6, 2020. On the first day of his second term in January, Trump set the executive order back into motion.
The 2025 Executive Order outlines the White House’s intentions to leave the WHO, emphasizing its response to the COVID-19 pandemic and partiality to other member states despite the U.S.’s significant financial contributions. Many global health experts have expressed concern about the WHO’s partiality to China, stating that agency officials accepted misinformation from the Chinese government regarding the early spreads of COVID-19. The WHO declared COVID-19 a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) one month after the Chinese government alerted officials of a growing outbreak in Wuhan. The organization drew up a global preparedness and response plan that devolved into a diplomatic failure; in March 2020, Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus announced that the outbreak had reached levels of pandemic classification, calling for nations to develop their own emergency response plans. The WHO is a consortium of many member states and managing that is a challenge, especially amid global health emergencies of the COVID-19 caliber.
The executive order tasks Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought with suspending funding from the U.S. government to the WHO, transferring personnel working with the agency and reassigning activities previously entrusted to the WHO to U.S. affiliates. The order also calls for Rubio to end negotiations with the WHO pandemic agreement and contributions to the International Health Regulations, a framework to which all member states are required to monitor and report potential public health crises. The Trump Administration has directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to sever communications with the agency.
Founded in 1948, the WHO is a UN agency designated to promote global health and safety. It maintains lists of essential medicines and diagnostic tests for health care practices to reference. It also has exclusive authority to declare PHEICs, during which it will outline guidance for treatment and coordinate the dissemination of data and deployment of experts to locations in which they are most needed. It may also advise its member states in their responses to the emergency, including outlining potential restrictions on travel and trade. In the past five years, the bulk of its work has been to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and promote refugees’ health. The WHO's three priorities have been to expand health coverage, protect more people from health emergencies and ensure better health and well-being for a larger population.
Voluntary contributions from member states and other organizations are the WHO’s primary source of funding; these figures soar above member states’ assessed dues, which are calculated in proportion to their annual GDP. The U.S. was by far the largest donor to the WHO, contributing between $163 million to $816 million each year over the past decade. In 2024 the U.S. was projected to pitch in a total of $950 million, 14.5% of the WHO’s total budget for that year. Other than the U.S., nation-states are not the main donors to the WHO. Most of the benefactors trailing behind the U.S. are intergovernmental organizations and private philanthropic foundations. In the final year of Trump’s first term, U.S. funding to the WHO was slashed; some experts believe that the decision to lower its contribution amounts threatened the WHO’s effectiveness, and they cite financial restrictions as the main reason for the WHO’s slow response to outbreaks. Losing U.S. funding altogether will further impact the WHO’s capacity to generate and distribute resources and respond effectively to health crises.
U.S. withdrawal also means the dissolution of ties with the CDC, a crucial supporter of the WHO’s global disease surveillance control measures. It lended technical assistance in tracking both infectious and noncommunicable diseases, and marshaled resources and personnel to aid in emergency responses. Without their affiliation, the CDC will be excluded from evaluations of disease containment and response strategies of international outbreaks, and the U.S. will lose access to the WHO’s outbreak data and guidance on emerging health threats. This will significantly delay the exchange of crucial data and expertise, and thus the delivery of evidence-based guidance to health care professionals and the American public.
The WHO now faces the challenge of filling a financial void. In 2024 it launched its first investment round to attract pledges from donors to finance the following year’s Program of Work, after assessing the estimated contributions from all member states. How it will compensate for the loss of U.S. funding remains uncertain. The majority of U.S. contributions to the WHO were under voluntary obligation to maintain precedent, given the U.S. reputation for providing assistance to nations in need.
Another pressing issue is the loss of collaboration between the WHO and the CDC, which has significant implications for the future of public health. Dissolving communications between these two organizations threatens global preparedness for health emergencies and weakens health and safety for many populations, including the U.S.. In an increasingly interconnected world, the hindered responses to ongoing and future outbreaks propagates an existing challenge.
The WHO released a response to the 2025 Executive Order, emphasizing the instrumental role it plays in “protecting the health and security of the world’s people, including Americans” with its contributions to global health. The statement expresses hopes to work out a way in which the WHO can maintain some partnership with the U.S. “for the benefit of the health and well-being for millions of people around the globe.”
The U.S. will continue to fund global health security independently from the WHO. Its assistance with humanitarian response has important implications both for the populations suffering from global health emergencies and for diplomatic relations. In the global health space, the U.S. has become known for providing assistance to many countries, even those with whom it has poor diplomatic relations.
Global health opens opportunities for nations to engage with one another and develop diplomatic relations. If this is lost in the process of withdrawal, the U.S. may face consequences regarding its economics, politics and national security. Threats to global health are not restricted by international borders; they require coordinated effort for any nation or organization that is able to help in order to be addressed adequately.
コメント