President Donald Trump has initiated the process for the US to withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO). Following his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order directing the US to exit the WHO6, following through on his pre-election commitment.
The move comes amid many countries questioning the effectiveness of the United Nations health organization in dealing with pandemics effectively.
The move was not unexpected. Mr. Trump has been railing against the W.H.O. since 2020, when he attacked the agency over its approach to the coronavirus pandemic and threatened to withhold United States funding from it. But after he lost the 2020 election the threat did not materialize….[T]he W.H.O. has become a target of conservatives over its work on a “pandemic treaty” to strengthen pandemic preparedness and set legally binding policies for member countries on surveillance of pathogens, rapid sharing of outbreak data, and building up local manufacturing and supply chains for vaccines and treatments, among others.Talks on the treaty broke down last year. In the United States, some Republican lawmakers viewed the agreement as a threat to American sovereignty.
The withdrawal process will take one year, as established when the US became a WHO member in 1948. If completed, the US would join Liechtenstein as the only UN member country, not in WHO.
As with the Paris Climate Accord, a portion of the implementation of this executive order focuses on the transfer of funds to the global organization.
(d) The Secretary of State and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall take appropriate measures, with all practicable speed, to:(i) pause the future transfer of any United States Government funds, support, or resources to the WHO;(ii) recall and reassign United States Government personnel or contractors working in any capacity with the WHO; and(iii) identify credible and transparent United States and international partners to assume necessary activities previously undertaken by the WHO.
Legal Insurrection readers may recall that Trump has had a very strained relationship with the group, which began with the organizations atrocious handling of both China and the covid pandemic. He halted US funding for the group in April 2020 and officially initiated the exit in July.
Bide, of course, pushed the US right back into the group while transferring $200 million to it in early 2021.
“Experts” are beginning to rail against this move.
“This is going to be a grave strategic error that will make America less healthy and less safe,” Lawrence Gostin, a global public health expert and the faculty director of Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, told USA TODAY.“The withdrawal itself is going to isolate the United States,” Gostin said. “It’ll isolate us diplomatically, and it’ll isolate us in pandemic response.”
But I have been following the latest major outbreak of the Clade 1B monkeypox. As Legal Insurrection readers may recall, WHO declared mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) a global health emergency on August 14, 2024.
This declaration came in response to an outbreak of a new, more aggressive variant of the virus called clade Ib, which has spread rapidly in Africa. The outbreak began in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), resulting in over 13,700 cases and at least 450 deaths since the start of the year.
What has been the result of WHO involvement?
In addition to Central Africa, the new strain—Clade 1B, which is more easily transmissible by skin contact and causes more severe infections—has been reported in Sweden, Thailand, Germany, and California. As a reminder, Clade1B is much more transmissible through household-level interactions than other strains, which are passed through sexual contact.
Travel-related cases have also been reported in Belgium, Canada, India, Oman, Pakistan, Sweden, Thailand, and the United Kingdom.
Now, 4 cases have been reported in China.
Therefore, I am highly skeptical of WHO’s ability to protect our population. I prefer that money be spent on Americans and resources directed to this nation’s health.
I am not the only one who thinks this is a reasonable move for Trump.
Truly, it was a bad, sad day for the globalists.
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