America Leaves World Health Organization to Pursue Independent Health Journey Amidst Midlife Crisis
WASHINGTON / GENEVA — The United States officially withdrew from the World Health Organization on January 22, ending nearly eight decades of membership in the global public-health body because the last pandemic apparently convinced the administration that the problem was having too many people coordinating about pandemics.
President Donald Trump initiated the withdrawal through an executive order on his first day back in office in January 2025. His administration has accused WHO of mishandling COVID-19, failing to make sufficient reforms and being too susceptible to political influence from other member states. The administration says the United States can instead coordinate disease surveillance and public-health programs directly with individual countries and organizations.
The departure was comprehensive. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, the United States terminated WHO funding, recalled government personnel and contractors stationed with the organization, suspended hundreds of engagements and stopped participating in its committees, governing bodies and technical working groups. HHS declared that the legal withdrawal process was complete.
There is, however, an inconvenient little asterisk shaped like $260 million.
Reuters reported that the United States still owed roughly that amount in outstanding WHO fees. U.S. law governing the country’s original membership required a year’s notice and payment of outstanding financial obligations before departure, although the Trump administration disputes that payment is legally required as a condition of withdrawal. Georgetown global-health law expert Lawrence Gostin called the move a violation of U.S. law; the administration considers the exit complete.
Thus America begins the proud new national tradition of leaving an organization while still arguing over the tab.
The financial consequences are substantially larger for WHO than the joke suggests. Washington had traditionally supplied about 18% of the organization’s funding, making it by far its largest financial backer. The loss contributed to a budget crisis that forced WHO to cut its management team roughly in half, reduce programs and prepare to eliminate about a quarter of its workforce by mid-2026.
HHS argues that withdrawing restores accountability to American taxpayers, noting that U.S. assessed contributions averaged roughly $111 million annually, in addition to about $570 million a year in voluntary contributions in recent years. The administration says the country will remain a global public-health leader while working outside WHO structures.
That is the legitimate policy argument beneath the noise: whether a wealthy nation receives adequate value and accountability from a sprawling international institution. International organizations absolutely deserve scrutiny. Bureaucracies are quite capable of becoming expensive, complacent and self-preserving; anyone who has ever attempted to cancel cable already understands the basic mechanism.
The stranger proposition is that an imperfect international disease-surveillance network is therefore best repaired by the largest contributor leaving it.
Global-health experts warned that reduced American involvement could weaken the international systems used to detect and respond to infectious diseases. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged Washington to reconsider, while the administration stated that it had no plans to return even as an observer.
COVID-19 demonstrated, among considerably more unpleasant things, that viruses possess little respect for nationalism. They do not check passports, study electoral maps, distinguish red counties from blue ones or become discouraged upon learning that Washington intends to negotiate bilateral agreements.
America is therefore attempting something ambitious: putting America First in a field where pathogens have traditionally preferred Everywhere At Once.
