{"id":535684,"date":"2026-01-22T23:25:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T23:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/535684\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T23:25:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T23:25:12","slug":"us-withdraws-from-the-world-health-organization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/535684\/","title":{"rendered":"US withdraws from the World Health Organization"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul data-testid=\"Summary\" class=\"summary-module__summary__QjADA\">\n<li data-testid=\"Body\" class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 text-module__regular__qJJtA text-module__small__sph8i body-module__base__o--Cl body-module__small_body__gOmDf summary-module__point__UgXPz\">US owes WHO $260 million in fees<\/li>\n<li data-testid=\"Body\" class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 text-module__regular__qJJtA text-module__small__sph8i body-module__base__o--Cl body-module__small_body__gOmDf summary-module__point__UgXPz\">WHO faces budget crisis, staff cuts linked to US exit<\/li>\n<li data-testid=\"Body\" class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 text-module__regular__qJJtA text-module__small__sph8i body-module__base__o--Cl body-module__small_body__gOmDf summary-module__point__UgXPz\">US official says country does not intend to return to WHO<\/li>\n<li data-testid=\"Body\" class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 text-module__regular__qJJtA text-module__small__sph8i body-module__base__o--Cl body-module__small_body__gOmDf summary-module__point__UgXPz\">Global health experts urge re-think<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>LONDON, Jan 22 (Reuters) &#8211; The United States officially left the World Health Organization on Thursday after a year of warnings that doing so would hurt public health in the U.S. and globally, saying its decision reflected failures in the U.N. health agency&#8217;s management of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>President <a data-testid=\"Link\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/us\/donald-trump\/\" class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__inherit-color__PhuPF text-module__inherit-font__1P1hv text-module__inherit-size__EyiQW link-module__link__INqxZ link-module__underline_default__-okuC\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Donald Trump<\/a> gave <a data-testid=\"Link\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/us\/trump-signs-executive-withdrawing-world-health-organization-2025-01-21\/\" class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__inherit-color__PhuPF text-module__inherit-font__1P1hv text-module__inherit-size__EyiQW link-module__link__INqxZ link-module__underline_default__-okuC\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">notice that the U.S. would quit the organization<\/a> on the first day of his presidency in 2025, via an executive order.<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"promo-box\" class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 text-module__regular__qJJtA text-module__small__sph8i body-module__base__o--Cl body-module__small_body__gOmDf article-body-module__promo-box__hVl8h\"> Sign up  <a data-testid=\"Link\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/healthcare-pharmaceuticals\/us-set-quit-world-health-organization-2026-01-22\/undefined?location=article-paragraph&amp;redirectUrl=%2Fbusiness%2Fhealthcare-pharmaceuticals%2Fus-set-quit-world-health-organization-2026-01-22%2F\" class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__inherit-color__PhuPF text-module__inherit-font__1P1hv text-module__inherit-size__EyiQW link-module__link__INqxZ link-module__underline_default__-okuC\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>According to a press release from the U.S. Health and State Departments, the U.S. will only work with the WHO in a limited fashion in order to effectuate the withdrawal.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have no plans to participate as an observer, and we have no plans of rejoining,&#8221; a senior government health official said. The U.S. said it plans to work directly with other countries &#8211; rather than through an international organization &#8211; on disease surveillance and other public health priorities.<\/p>\n<p>DISPUTE OVER US-OWED FEES<\/p>\n<p>Under U.S. law, it was supposed to give one-year notice and pay all outstanding fees &#8211; around $260 million &#8211; before departing.<\/p>\n<p>But a U.S. State Department official disputed that the statute contains a condition that any payment needs to be made before withdrawal.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The American people have paid more than enough,&#8221; a State Department spokesperson said in an email earlier on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The Department of Health and Human Services said in a document released on Thursday that the government had ended its funding contributions to the agency. Trump had exercised his authority to pause the future transfer of any U.S. government resources to the WHO because the organization had cost the U.S. trillions of dollars, the HHS spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. flag had been removed from outside the WHO headquarters in Geneva on Thursday, according to witnesses.<\/p>\n<p>In recent weeks, the U.S. has moved to exit a number of other United Nations organizations, and some fear that Trump&#8217;s <a data-testid=\"Link\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/europe\/trump-launch-board-peace-that-some-fear-rivals-un-2026-01-22\/\" class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__inherit-color__PhuPF text-module__inherit-font__1P1hv text-module__inherit-size__EyiQW link-module__link__INqxZ link-module__underline_default__-okuC\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">recently launched Board of Peace<\/a> could undermine the UN as a whole.<\/p>\n<p>Several WHO critics have also proposed setting up a new agency to replace the organization, although a proposal document reviewed by the Trump administration last year instead suggested the U.S. push for reforms and American leadership at WHO.<\/p>\n<p>QUICK RETURN UNLIKELY<\/p>\n<p>Over the last year, many global health experts have urged a rethink, including most recently WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.<\/p>\n<p>The WHO also said the U.S. has not yet paid the fees it owes for 2024 and 2025. Member states are set to discuss the U.S. departure and how it will be handled at the WHO\u2019s executive board in February, a WHO spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a clear violation of U.S. law,\u201d said Lawrence Gostin, founding director of the O\u2019Neill Institute for Global Health Law at Georgetown University in Washington, a close observer of the WHO. \u201cBut Trump is highly likely to get away with it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bill Gates \u2013 chair of the Gates Foundation, a major funder of global health initiatives and some of the WHO\u2019s work \u2013 told Reuters at Davos that he did not expect the U.S. to reconsider in the short term.<\/p>\n<p>Gates said he would still advocate for the U.S. to rejoin. \u201cThe world needs the World Health Organization,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>WHAT THE DEPARTURE MEANSThe U.S. departure has sparked a financial crisis that has seen the WHO cut its management team in half and scale back work, cutting budgets across the agency. Washington has traditionally been by far the U.N. health agency&#8217;s biggest financial backer, contributing around 18% of its overall funding. The WHO will also shed around <a data-testid=\"Link\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/world-at-work\/who-lose-quarter-its-workforce-by-mid-2026-document-shows-2025-11-18\/\" class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__inherit-color__PhuPF text-module__inherit-font__1P1hv text-module__inherit-size__EyiQW link-module__link__INqxZ link-module__underline_default__-okuC\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a quarter of its staff by the middle of this year.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The agency said it has been working with the U.S. and sharing information in the last year. It was unclear how the collaboration will work going forward.<\/p>\n<p>Global health experts said this posed risks for the U.S., the WHO and the world.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe U.S. withdrawal from WHO could weaken the systems and collaborations the world relies on to detect, prevent, and respond to health threats,\u201d said Kelly Henning, public health program lead at Bloomberg Philanthropies, a U.S.-based non-profit.<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"SignOff\" class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 text-module__regular__qJJtA text-module__extra_small__8Buss body-module__full_width__kCIGb body-module__extra_small_body__Bfz20 sign-off-module__text__LQAMP\">Reporting by Jennifer Rigby and Emma Farge, additional reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in Davos and Michael Erman in New York; Editing by David Gregorio and Bill Berkrot<\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"Body\" dir=\"ltr\" class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 text-module__regular__qJJtA text-module__small__sph8i body-module__base__o--Cl body-module__small_body__gOmDf article-body-module__element__5eCce article-body-module__trust-badge__5mS3f\">Our Standards: <a data-testid=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thomsonreuters.com\/en\/about-us\/trust-principles.html\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 text-module__medium__2Rl30 text-module__small__sph8i link-module__link__INqxZ link-module__underline_default__-okuC link-module__with-icon__qlg76\">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reutersagency.com\/en\/licensereuterscontent\/?utm_medium=rcom-article-media&amp;utm_campaign=rcom-rcp-lead\" target=\"_blank\" dir=\"ltr\" class=\"button-module__link__A3sD0 button-module__secondary__70gBu button-module__round__QDFgq button-module__w_auto__Sem-F\" data-testid=\"LicenceContentButton\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Purchase Licensing Rights<\/a><a data-testid=\"AuthorBioImageLink\" class=\"author-bio-module__author-image__jcaG3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/authors\/jennifer-rigby\/\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" tabindex=\"-1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"Body\" class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 text-module__regular__qJJtA text-module__extra_small__8Buss body-module__base__o--Cl body-module__extra_small_body__Bfz20 author-bio-module__description__9ynkB\">Jen is the Global Health Correspondent at Reuters, covering everything from pandemics to the rise of obesity worldwide. Since joining the news agency in 2022, her award-winning work includes coverage of gender-affirming care for adolescents in the UK and a global investigation with colleagues into how contaminated cough syrup killed hundreds of children in Africa and Asia. She previously worked at the Telegraph newspaper and Channel 4 News in the UK, and spent time as a freelancer in Myanmar and the Czech Republic.<\/p>\n<p><a data-testid=\"AuthorBioImageLink\" class=\"author-bio-module__author-image__jcaG3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/authors\/emma-farge\/\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" tabindex=\"-1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p data-testid=\"Body\" class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 text-module__regular__qJJtA text-module__extra_small__8Buss body-module__base__o--Cl body-module__extra_small_body__Bfz20 author-bio-module__description__9ynkB\">Emma Farge reports on the U.N. beat and Swiss news from Geneva since 2019. She has produced a string of exclusives on diplomacy, the environment and global trade and covered Switzerland\u2019s first war crimes trial. Her Reuters career started in 2009 covering oil swaps from London and she has since written about the West African Ebola outbreak, embedded with U.N. troops in north Mali and was the first reporter to enter deposed Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh\u2019s estate. She co-authored a winning story for the  Elizabeth Neuffer Memorial Prize on Russia\u2019s diplomatic isolation in 2022 and was also part of a team of journalists nominated in 2012 as Pulitzer finalists in the international reporting category for coverage of the Libyan revolution. She holds a BA from Oxford University (First) and an MSc from the LSE in International Relations. She is currently on the board of the press association for UN correspondents in Geneva (ACANU).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US owes WHO $260 million in fees WHO faces budget crisis, staff cuts linked to US exit US&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":535685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[23],"tags":[216147,236988,223952,216409,216152,217360,216411,165893,216164,217356,216153,216154,165853,223951,746,165856,217346,219527,223948,236989,165858,4630,165849,216149,216143,217358,216407,223949,216155,216156,165860,33106,216408,223944,159,216158,219747,216157,217317,67,132,68,83854],"class_list":["post-535684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-amers","tag-cncer","tag-destef-business-future-of-health","tag-destlita","tag-destocatpm","tag-destohlt","tag-destopub","tag-destouktpm","tag-destousdnm","tag-destoushem","tag-destoustpm","tag-destouswdm","tag-dip","tag-efbusiness-future-of-health","tag-environment","tag-gen","tag-hea","tag-humdis","tag-infdis","tag-influe","tag-intag","tag-legal","tag-mtpix","tag-namer","tag-news1","tag-nrlpaohlt","tag-nrlpaopub","tag-oms","tag-packageus-top-news","tag-packageworld-news","tag-pol","tag-potus","tag-reuters-legal","tag-rhpigovernment-health-policy","tag-science","tag-topcmb","tag-topicpharma-healthcare-policy-regulation","tag-topnws","tag-un1","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-wash"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}