Trump: The World Health Organization “deceived us”

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that the United States will withdraw from the World Health Organization, adding that the organization has mishandled the Covid-19 pandemic and other international health crises.

He added that the organization did not act in isolation from the “inappropriate political influence of its member states” and demanded “unfairly high payments” from the United States that were disproportionate to the amounts provided by other, larger countries such as China.

When signing an executive order to withdraw after his inauguration as president, Trump said, “The World Health Organization deceived us, and everyone is deceiving the United States. This will not happen anymore.”

The organization has not yet responded to a request for comment.

In response to a question about Trump’s decision and statements, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a regular press briefing on Tuesday that the organization’s role in managing global health should be strengthened, not weakened.

“China will continue to support the World Health Organization in fulfilling its responsibilities and strengthen international cooperation in the field of public health,” said ministry spokesman Guo Jiaqun.

Trump’s move means that the United States will leave the United Nations Health Organization within 12 months and stop all financial contributions to its work. The United States is the largest financial supporter of the World Health Organization, contributing about 18 percent of its total funding. The organization’s latest budget was for the years 2024 and 2025, and amounted to $6.8 billion.

Several experts inside and outside the organization believe that the United States’ withdrawal will jeopardize the organization’s programs, especially those related to tuberculosis, the most infectious disease that causes death in the world, and the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS and other health emergencies.

Trump’s order stated that the US administration will halt negotiations on the pandemic agreement with the World Health Organization while the withdrawal process is underway, and will recall the organization’s US government employees and reassign them to other places, and will search for partners to undertake the organization’s necessary activities.

The order stated that the government will review, cancel and change the US Global Health Security Strategy for 2024 as soon as possible.

The second largest donors to the organization are the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but most of its funding goes to eradicating polio, and the global vaccine group Gavi, followed by the European Commission and the World Bank.

The next national donor is Germany, which contributes about three percent of the organization’s funding.

Trump’s withdrawal from the World Health Organization is not surprising. He took steps to withdraw from it in 2020, during his first presidential term, accusing it of aiding China’s efforts to “mislead the world” about the origin of Covid.

The World Health Organization strongly denies the accusation and says it continues to pressure Beijing to share data to determine whether Covid arose from human contact with infected animals or from research into similar viruses in a local laboratory.

Trump also suspended US contributions to the organization, costing it nearly $200 million in 2020 and 2021, in contrast to the previous two budgets when it was facing the worst health emergency in the world in a century.

Under US law, withdrawal from the World Health Organization requires notice one year in advance and payment of any fees due.