Republican Senators Want Biden to Reject WHO’s Proposed “Pandemic Treaty”
WHO is desperate to get the deal done in an upcoming international meeting.
I recently noted that the World Health Organization (WHO) pandemic treaty is floundering, as countries are no longer keen to commit themselves to an organization that failed so spectacularly during the last pandemic.
US Senators are trying to nip any American participation in the bud, given how keenly the Biden administration and Democrats embrace the gutting of our national needs in favor of those pushed by global bureaucracies.
In a letter sent to Biden, the entire Republican Senate conference called on the occupant of the Oval Office to reject agreements that would expand the WHO’s authority in the case of a global pandemic.
“We strongly urge you not to join any pandemic related treaty, convention, or agreement being considered” at the 77th World Health Assembly, reads a letter sent to Biden by [Sen. Ron Johnson, (R-WI)] and all 48 other Republican senators.
The Republican senators stressed that any such agreement would be considered a treaty, which they noted requires “the concurrence of two-thirds of the Senate under Article I Section 2 of the Constitution.”
The World Health Assembly (WHA) will take place from May 27 to June 1, and international agreements are expected to be considered.
The WHA is the WHO’s decision-making body, which meets yearly, so it can lay out its goals and craft policies between the 194 member states.
US Senators Drop a Bombshell on the World Health Organization
In a shocking turn of events, all Republican senators (49), led by Senator Ron Johnson, have formally urged President Joe Biden to withdraw his support in expanding the WHO’s pandemic authority.
What's surprising is… pic.twitter.com/NxSf1uOf7T
— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) May 5, 2024
The GOP looks pretty eager to make this an election issue.
…[A] a growing coalition of Republicans on Capitol Hill, as well as supporters of former President Donald Trump, have been rallying against the treaty. During a news conference Monday on Capitol Hill, Reps. Christopher H. Smith, R-N.J., and Wenstrup argued the treaty is too political and relies too heavily on financial support from U.S. taxpayers.
Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, called the draft “a global power grab” that forces progressive social policies on countries. The agreement calls for the continuation of essential health services, which include abortion.
Smith also objected to the WHO’s relationship with the International Planned Parenthood Federation and interest in forming a relationship with the Center for Reproductive Rights. The WHO is expected to vote in May to grant official relations with the center.
The group also said it worried about potential financial obligations, saying participating countries would not know their financial obligations under the treaty until well after the treaty is signed.
To say the WHO is desperate to get the deal done in the upcoming meeting would be an understatement.
“Give the people of the world, the people of your countries, the people you represent, a safer future,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a Geneva meeting.
“So I have one simple request: please, get this done, for them,” he said. He encouraged countries who did not fully agree with the text to at least refrain from blocking consensus among WHO’s 194 member states.
One of the main points of disagreement between wealthy countries and developing states is the vexed issue of sharing drugs and vaccines fairly to avoid a repeat of COVID-era failures.
Some right-wing politicians in countries like the United States and Australia have also criticised the accord, which would be legally binding, arguing that it cedes too much power to a U.N. agency.
Tedros has strongly refuted this argument, saying the accord would help countries better guard against outbreaks.
However, there is good hope for liberty-loving Americans. There has only been once in 75-year history that the WHO’s member countries have been able to agree to a legally binding treaty …which as the tobacco control treaty in 2003.
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Comments
The UK already rejected it:
“The U.K. reportedly refuses to agree to any treaty which would not allow the nation to put its own interests first.”
Sovereignty, it’s not just for borders anymore.
If it harms the United States, you can bet the Biden puppeteers are in favor of it. Traitors, every one of them.
And many Republicans, also. These are truly democrats who were able to dress in Republican clothing.
They are “Citizens of The World” so why wouldn’t they support it.
Frankly, America should not fund this, or the UN at all. It is waste of money, much like the EU, unaccountable bureaucracies.
Any agreement that gives any foreign or international organization one iota of control over the US needs to be vehemently rejected. Any politician who advocates for this sort of thing needs to be tarred and feathered.
Unless I’m wrong, Congress is the one that decides to accept or reject treaties. King Joseph, the Biden has nothing to do with it.
Since the Communist basically control both houses of congress, I think they can do whatever they want. Chuck the Schmucks got the Senate locked up while Mike Johnson’s Hakeem Jeffries little bitch
No, they don’t. A treaty requires 2/3 of the senate (and none of the house).
Which means if he wants it to have the status of a treaty, and thus rank equal with a federal statute, he hasn’t got the numbers.
But he may try implementing it, or some of it, without giving it that status.
I knew it was one of the legislative bodies. Thanks for clearing it up.
Because there totally aren’t a bunch of traitors in the senate at all…
You are reacting to a story that all 49 R senators oppose this; so how can he get it ratified by 2/3? He simply doesn’t have the numbers to go that route.
Indeed much like the Paris thing on Climate. Obama and the Dems ran around calling it a binding treaty. Trump cancelled it Day 1 and Democrats didn’t fight as they knew it wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on
No, they didn’t call it a treaty. They denied that it was a treaty, which is why they didn’t see any need to submit it to the senate. It was an executive agreement, which is just a voluntary agreement between governments and has no force of law.
I heard from a number of sources at the time “Paris Accords” and “Treaty on Climate Change” used interchangeable with each other.
People may have used it that way but 0bama never submitted it to the senate for ratification as a treaty, which means that as far as the USA was concerned it wasn’t intended to be one.
The same was true with the Iran deal, which was never ratified as a treaty by any party. That’s why a 2/3 vote in each house was necessary in order to prevent it; the only thing the USA committed to under the deal was to lift the sanctions against Iran, and 0bama already had the power to do that, so the only way to stop him was to pass a law removing that power from him. And doing that over his veto needed 2/3 in each house; the opponents nearly achieved that, but not quite.
Republicans surrendered to Obama and allowed him to get the treaty to help Iran obtain nuclear weapons passed. Republican senators are asserting that this disaster is a treaty that require ratification by the Senate.
No, they did not. On the contrary, they did everything they possibly could to prevent it. So did a significant number of Democrats, almost enough of them to make it work, but not quite.
And that assertion is nonsense. It is entirely up to the president whether to treat it as a proposed treaty, and seek the senate’s consent, or to treat it differently and not bother. If he doesn’t send it to them for consent he doesn’t have to, and they get no say in the matter.
that darn constitution again …
it got in the way of “king putt”
and now against King Bite_me
not that it will stop the Dems
they may try to force it thru …
It tells a lot when the woke UK has already rejected it.
Republican Senators mean business, everyone. Expect them. /sarc
I believe the Senate has to ratify any treaty by 2/3rds majority per Article II, Section 2. So how and why can Joementia hand over this much sovereign power to the WHO? Is this an appendix to the UN treaty?
He can’t. It’s meaningless posturing for the progressive voters.
They are playing the same game they tried when Obama “signed” the so-called Paris Agreement on climate change. In that case they knew the Senate wouldn’t buy it so they tried to pull a fast one by calling it an agreement instead of a treaty, thereby boxing the Senate out.
However, that signature was meaningless as the Senate had already said “we don’t care what you call it, it’s a treaty and it’s not binding unless we approve it.”. Trump shot it down formally and Biden re-accepted it.
Same game, different name. President’s who think they can ignore the constitution.
If it’s not ratified by 2/3 of the senate it isn’t a treaty, and the senate doesn’t get to say anything about it.
If it’s not ratified by 2/3 of the Senate they HAVE had their say about it.
No, they haven’t. Not if he never submits it for their ratification in the first place.
Which means Sundowner will sign it and call it a
non-treaty treaty
He can do that. But then it won’t be a treaty.
Channeling Whoopi Goldberg it’s not a treaty treaty ..
“Treaty” is a legal status. If it’s not ratified it’s not a treaty.
Now your referring to our intellectual superiors. I was going to disagree but I’ve got nothing on that academic heavyweight
It’s not up to them whether it’s “considered a treaty”. In fact they have it backwards. If it’s not consented to by 2/3 of the senate then by definition it isn’t a treaty.
Treaty status doesn’t depend on what anyone calls something. If the president made it with the consent of 2/3 of the senate then it’s a treaty. If he didn’t then it isn’t one. That’s all.
Treaties are laws. They’re a alternative way to make laws. If the president wants something and he has 2/3 support in the senate but can’t get even a majority in the house, and it can plausibly be made out to be on a matter of international concern, he can find some country to make a treaty with about it, and have the senate pass it, and thus bypass the house.
If the president has a majority of the house and the senate, but not 2/3 of the senate, then he can do the same thing by having both houses pass it as a statute. That has exactly the same effect as a treaty, except that a future president can’t unilaterally abrogate it.
If he hasn’t got the numbers for either of these things, he can just make it a personal agreement, which has no force of law and is not binding on anyone. He can choose to voluntarily comply with it, so long as everything it requires him to do is already within his powers. If it requires him to do something that congress has never given him the authority to do, then he can’t do those things.
That’s what 0bama did with the Paris agreement and with the Iran deal. Neither of those required him to do anything that he wasn’t already authorized to do, so he didn’t need to get them passed as treaties or as statutes. That’s why there was an effort to legislate to remove his power to lift the Iran sanctions, but to do that over his veto required 2/3 in each house, and he managed to bully enough Democrats to avoid that.
Biden could become a small “d” democrat and submit the treaty to a vote in the Senate as called for by that document that he swore to uphold upon taking office. It is supposed to be the other guy that would be undemocratic – right?
Nothing in the constitution requires the president to submit anything to the senate. All it says is that he needs the consent of 2/3 of the senate in order to make a treaty. If he chooses to make an agreement other than a treaty he doesn’t need anyone’s permission; but then it won’t be a law, and if it requires something not permitted by current law that thing won’t be possible.
Please sign this online petition opposing such an Agreement: https://sovereigntycoalition.org/
I’m torn.
I like to give The Feckless Rs credit whenever they get so lost they end up in the right place. On the other hand this is a killer issue about 14 ways each, on policy and politics, and they’re being, well, feckless on both counts.
Two and a half cheers for business as usual?
Oh, god no. Anybody who’s read the thing is so spun up and appalled that even some Feckless R Senators have been stampeded into taking a position that looks principled.
The Screaming Ds, of course, still want it all, as it grabs yet another chunk of Authoritah into extra-national organizations and administrations. They loved them some Paris Climate Accords, then got all wee-wee’d up when The Orange Crush “unilaterally” pulled out of their executive action, non-treaty.
Pass a law. Make a treaty. Approve a cabinet secretary vs. appoint another cross-department “Czar.” (Who’s a Russian stooge(tm) again? Also, origins of “Czar”?) While you’re at it, declare a war if it’s war that must be.
“Czars” are advisers to the president, not officers of the United States, which is why he doesn’t need the senate’s consent to appoint them. He’s entitled to get his advice from whomever he pleases. They have no statutory powers at all, and exercise only as much power as the president chooses to delegate to them, for as long as he so chooses.
The term has been used in the USA since the 1910s. Bernard Baruch was known as the “industry czar”,
While a declaration of war is not necessary in order for a state of war to exist, Congress has declared every major war that the USA has been in; the term preferred nowadays is “Authorization to Use Military Force”, but it is a declaration of war. It has never been a requirement that such a declaration must contain magic words such as “We Declare War!”.