US withdrawal from WHO: The United States’ decision to withdraw from the World Health Organisation marks a serious rupture in global health governance and a self-inflicted risk to American public health.
After a one-year notice period, the Trump administration formally exited the WHO and instructed officials to identify “credible and transparent” alternatives to assume functions previously managed by the agency. The intent is not reform from within but the creation of a parallel, US-led arrangement operating outside the UN’s multilateral framework. This move reflects American exceptionalism rather than institutional necessity. It weakens a system that depends on coordination, trust, and shared surveillance rather than bilateral leverage.
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What the US walks away from
The United States was a founding member of the WHO and a central contributor to its most consequential achievements. These include the eradication of smallpox and sustained progress against polio, HIV, Ebola, tuberculosis, malaria, influenza, and neglected tropical diseases, as well as work on antimicrobial resistance, food safety, and pandemic preparedness.
None of these outcomes emerged from unilateral leadership. They required pooled expertise, shared data, and collective compliance—precisely the mechanisms the US now seeks to bypass.
The concerns cited by Washington are not novel. They are part of an ongoing institutional dialogue that will be taken up by the WHO Executive Board beginning 2 February and by the World Health Assembly in May 2026. Withdrawal pre-empts that process.
The COVID-19 charge sheet
The US government says the WHO compromised its independence and failed during COVID-19 by obstructing timely information sharing and concealing errors. The record does not support this claim.
Following reports of pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan on 31 December 2019, the WHO sought additional information from China and activated its emergency incident management system. Before China’s first reported death on 11 January 2020, the WHO had alerted the global community through official channels and public briefings. On 30 January 2020, when the Director-General declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, there were fewer than 100 cases and no deaths outside China.
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The WHO shared available information, convened international experts, and issued evolving guidance based on emerging evidence. It recommended tools—mask use, vaccination, physical distancing—but did not mandate lockdowns, vaccine requirements, or travel bans. Those decisions rested with sovereign governments.
Where responsibility actually lay
If pandemic performance is the benchmark, the United States’ own record demands closer scrutiny.
The US had recorded more than 1.1 million COVID-19 deaths by 2023, far more compared with its peers, despite greater financial and scientific capacity. Several independent studies and Congressional investigations attribute this to delayed response, political interference, and institutional fragmentation.
The Trump administration undermined the autonomy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by downplaying risks, contradicting public health guidance, and sidelining experts. Testing failures delayed detection until late February 2020. Surveillance systems were fragmented. Stockpiles of personal protective equipment and ventilators proved inadequate. Federalism produced uncoordinated state responses and uneven resource allocation in the absence of a national strategy.
Lockdowns without clearly articulated objectives eroded trust. School closures disproportionately harmed disadvantaged communities. The politicisation of science crowded out evidence-based debate. These were domestic failures, not multilateral ones.
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US withdrawal from WHO: Misplaced accusations of politicisation
Washington’s claim that the WHO serves a politicised agenda hostile to US interests is unconvincing. The organisation is governed by 194 Member States and operates through negotiated consensus. Its legitimacy rests precisely on the absence of dominance by any single power. Multiple independent reviews of the WHO’s pandemic performance identified areas for improvement. The organisation has since strengthened surveillance, preparedness, and response mechanisms. These reforms benefited all Member States, including the United States.
What the withdrawal will also do—more quietly—is weaken the WHO’s operating capacity. The United States has been the organisation’s largest single funder, particularly through voluntary, earmarked contributions that finance disease surveillance, emergency response, and programmes such as polio eradication in low-income and fragile states.
Unlike assessed contributions, these funds are not easily replaceable in the short term. A US exit therefore creates immediate gaps in monitoring and response systems that underpin global health security, increasing the risk that outbreaks go undetected or uncontrolled—risks that do not stop at national borders.
Reform requires engagement, not exit
If the US is serious about preventing future crises, its focus should extend beyond external scapegoating. Sustainable public health funding, clarity on federal authority, domestic manufacturing resilience, interoperable data systems, and universal health coverage remain unresolved challenges at home.
Globally, the WHO remains the only institution with the mandate and reach to coordinate pandemic preparedness. Member States approved the WHO Pandemic Agreement last year. Once ratified, it will become a binding international instrument. Negotiations are under way on a Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing annex to enable rapid detection and equitable access to vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics.
These frameworks cannot function without the participation of major powers.
The global public health community continues to hope that the United States will re-engage with the WHO. In the interim, the organisation must continue working with all Member States to fulfil its constitutional mandate: the highest attainable standard of health as a basic right, not a discretionary privilege.