It was a year ago that I was reporting on the tragedy of the U.S. initiating its resignation from the Paris Agreement, and now here I am again announcing the official end of the U.S. from the World Health Organization (WHO).
The Paris Agreement and the WHO were only two of the 66 international organizations and agreements that the Trump administration signed in Jan. 2025, as part of its one-year notice of membership cancellation.
The notice for the WHO came in the form of Executive Order 14155, which declared the decision one year in advance that it will be leaving the organization in charge of health responses, medical data analysis, and scientific humanitarian efforts. It came true in late Jan. 2026.
All funding has been terminated, all U.S. employees embedded in the WHO have been recalled around the world, and all official U.S. participation in the WHO-related committees and governance have been rescinded. The federal government has erased any sign of the U.S.’s presence in the WHO.
However, the U.S. technically needs to pay almost $280 million in late fees to the WHO first in order to leave, which accumulated when the Trump administration withheld the payments for 2024 and 2025, questioning the validity of the withdrawal. Although the WHO has no backing to enforce this rule, so the U.S. could walk away Scott-Free.
President Trump originally wanted to leave the organization back in 2020, but because of the one-year notice requirement, incoming president Joe Biden vetoed the discontinuation. Former President Biden didn’t see an incompetent agency like President Trump continues to do.
President Trump doesn’t see the reversal of globalization that we do. The main reasons for the withdrawal of the U.S. from the UN collaboration all stem from COVID-19.
To quote directly from Executive Order 14155, the WHO exhibited “mishandling[s] 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.”
The leaders of the U.S. were deeply upset with the nonexistent control the WHO had over the pandemic. They were slow to declare the Coronavirus as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and weren’t transparent about the ordeal in China to the rest of the world. The U.S. doesn’t like to be in the dark, so much so that politicians have blamed the WHO for squirming under the political pressure of the Chinese Communist Party, which created obscurity between the countries in the WHO.
The other primary reason lies in the alleged unfairness of fees in the WHO’s financing. On average, the U.S. pays in assessed contributions about $111 million per year and ranging from $500 million to $1 billion in voluntary contributions per year. Their sudden anger lies in the fact that China “contributes nearly 90 percent less to the WHO” while having “300 percent of the population of the United States,” according to the second half of the Executive order.
But here’s the twist: the U.S. pays 20% of its budget, which is “proportionate to just a fraction of its approximate 25% share of global gross domestic product,” as stated by PubMed Central.
The WHO has made it clear that the amount of assessed contributions assigned to each member is determined in relation to the country’s gross domestic product, wealth, and population together, so an argument that, “China has a greater population, therefore they should pay more,” seems a bit unreasonable. The amount of voluntary contributions paid should be left out of the conversation as well, considering they are, after all, voluntary.
Will the U.S. truly give up its 78-year-long history with the WHO because of the last six years? If so, the U.S. must be prepared to give up the title of being a leading authority in public health, having no longer access to disease-detecting technology, medicinal data shared around the globe, and fast communication via the middle-man.
The U.S. has attempted to compensate for this loss, but its second-hand streaming service is faulty. Led by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Global Health Center, the U.S. has staff in 60 countries with independent agreements to share information, but that’s only 60 out of the 193 countries that the WHO has. The full details have not been released yet, but it would be no surprise to learn that the solution is immensely disorganized.
“[We] wouldn’t have a voice in what the response to the threat should be,” Judd Walson, Chairman of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Department of International Health, warned on a podcast. He highlighted the disastrous consequences for the U.S. to be left out of the loop on health developments in the world, especially pandemics. “We’re not part of that discussion. We have no access to the data. All of that now becomes a black box.”
The U.S. has a toxic desire to cancel every streaming subscription it has. When the latest episode drops, everyone else will be up to date, while the U.S. stands in the corner, confused. Even if they resort to watching a bootleg version of it, it’s not the same. Some shots are missing. The U.S. will still be lost.
The WHO will also be facing harsh budget cuts, which will already lead to over 2,300 people losing their jobs by the summer of 2026. The briefly weakened WHO will not have sufficient funds to maintain public health programs and efficiently coordinate responses to threats until the budget is adjusted to be supported without the U.S.
The consequences of the U.S. leaving may arrive sooner than anticipated with the development of the flu. It is undecided whether or not the U.S. will participate in a WHO-led committee to discuss the next flu vaccines. The U.S. has lost its ability to access the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System, so the likelihood is quite small, potentially jeopardizing its ability to protect its citizens from dangerous flu strains.
It does, however, feel necessary for the U.S. to leave the WHO in order to spark reform within the agency. In fear of more countries leaving the WHO, the organization must undergo financial, political, and clarity improvements to avoid its repeated prevalence in a future global emergency. Society should feel confident in the WHO instead of throwing criticisms at it for hesitations regarding the last pandemic. Then, in the near future, the U.S. can welcome it back in new, open arms.
