WHO signs international pandemic response treaty without the U.S.

21 comments

1. After three years of intensive negotiations, the World Health Organization on Tuesday adopted the world’s first agreement on how to cooperate and respond to future pandemics — without the support of the United States.

   The agreement was overwhelmingly passed in a vote of the World Health Assembly, an annual gathering of WHO member state delegations: 124 votes in favor, 11 abstentions and no objections. Leaders of member states hailed the accords, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who [called](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf1Wf2ZpssM&ab_channel=NarendraModi) it a shared commitment to ensuring “no one is left behind.”

   The United States, long the WHO’s largest single donor, was notably absent from the vote, its delegation pulled after President Donald Trump withdrew the country from the organization on his Inauguration Day. Trump accused the WHO of “mishandling” the pandemic, and claimed it was subject to “inappropriate political influence” when he pulled back from continuing to fund the organization.

   Read more here: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/05/20/who-pandemic-agreement-world-health-rfk-kennedy/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/05/20/who-pandemic-agreement-world-health-rfk-kennedy/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com)

2. Can we not still have access to any benefits that could be made available via research, money and hard work of others. I mean who is going to say no to a humanitarian gesture.

3. Does this mean if there is a pandemic US citizens will not be able to travel outside the US?

4. well.. are you gona say WHO it was!? ba dum tsss

5. This will be the pattern going forward. If the US wants to be a bully to the world, the world will just cut it out. We’re currently led by people who would be perfectly happy to rule over a miserable wasteland, as long as they get to be the ruler.

6. The guy that failed at Covid response is president again. That should tell u why they dont want us.

7. The US never ratifies international treaties that might require them to recognize basic human decency or to act like a nation with morals.

   Here’s a few dozen examples: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_treaties_unsigned_or_unratified_by_the_United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_treaties_unsigned_or_unratified_by_the_United_States)

8. [removed]

9. My dumbass read the headline like a question

10. Oh, well. With US no longer active partner with WHO, it is natural that WHO now act as though US never existed.

11. That’s fine, we shouldn’t be consulted on any world matters anymore because as a nation we are now irrelevant.

12. Communism is like a virus.

    Therefore viruses are communists.

    Patriotic® Americans do not subscribe to communism.

    Therefore only unpatriotic Americans are susceptible to viruses, and wanting to be vaccinated is proof of being unpatriotic.

    QED

    [/s for the obtuse]

13. Hot take, but as long as the WHO cannot enforce shit it is absolutely useless when it comes to pandemic/epidemic response. 

    This is like the  fourth time “treaties” and “plans” are made as a result of a health crisis, at least in my recent memory. the previous one did absolutely jack shit in the scheme of things. 

    – delayed response

    – over reliance on data from CHINA of all places (you know, the very open, trustworthy, and not at all all-time historical winner of “source of outbreaks”, having been the origin of at least  3 pandemics and 2 epidemics, not counting the spanish flu or black death which is a bit contested where exactly it came from) 

    – delayed communication 

    – no enforcement 

    – highly ineffective bureaucracy 

    and the list goes on. 

    I did not support the idea of the U.S. withdrawing from the WHO, but that organization has to change from the ground up, because right now it seems like just a data collection and standard making group who cannot even enforce or control these effectively. 

    Edit: 
    my point is: if the plans, measures and frameworks of the WHO are regularly ignored, especially by nations where outbreaks originate from, and the reaction/communication of the data collected is relayed for whatever reasons, then what is the value of the plans and data? 

14. America falling further and further behind.

15. Trump: “if we ignore it. It will go away.” Rest of the world: “no. We will not be doing that.”

16. Trump is a megalomaniac and unreliable. Thank you for not including him!!

17. I wonder if the rest of us will build that wall that Trump wanted?

18. I suspect most collaboration like this going forward is going to be “without the US”

19. Reads like an accusatory question lol

20. Feels great to be left out

21. One orangutan don’t stop no show!

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