By Jennifer Rigby and Emma Farge
LONDON, Jan 22 (Reuters) – The United States is expected to officially withdraw from the World Health Organization on Thursday, in the face of warnings that it will hit both US and global health and also in violation of a US law that requires Washington to pay the UN health agency $260 million in fees it owes.
President Donald Trump announced that the United States will leave the organization on the first day of his presidency in 2025, through an executive order. Under US law, you must give one year’s notice and pay all outstanding fees prior to departure.
On Thursday, a spokesman for the US State Department said that the WHO’s failure to maintain, manage and share information had cost the US trillions of dollars and the president had exercised his authority to stop the future transfer of any US government funds, support or resources to the WHO.
“The American people have paid more than enough to this organization and this economic hit is beyond a partial payment on any financial obligation to the organization,” the spokesman said by email.
A QUICK RETURN IS UNLIKELY
Over the past year, many global health experts have urged a rethink, including most recently WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“I hope the United States will reconsider and rejoin the WHO,” he told reporters at a press conference earlier this month. “Withdrawal from the WHO is a loss for the United States, and it is a loss for the rest of the world.”
The WHO also said that the United States has not yet paid the fees it has for 2024 and 2025. Member states are ready to discuss the US departure and how it will be handled at the WHO’s executive board in February, a WHO spokesman told Reuters by email.
“This is a clear violation of US law,” said Lawrence Gostin, founding director of the O’Neill Institute for Global Health Law at Georgetown University in Washington, a close observer of the WHO. “But Trump is very likely to walk away from it.”
Speaking to Reuters in Davos, Bill Gates – chairman of the Gates Foundation, a major funder of global health initiatives and some of the work of the WHO – said he did not expect the US to reconsider anytime soon.
“I don’t think the United States will return to the WHO in the near future,” he said, adding that when he had the opportunity to advocate for it, he would. “The world needs the World Health Organization.”
WHAT DOES DEPARTURE MEAN
For the WHO, the departure of the United States has triggered a budget crisis that has seen it cut its management team in half and reduce work, cutting budgets across the agency. Washington has traditionally been by far the biggest financial supporter of the UN health agency, contributing around 18% of its overall funding. The WHO will also release around a quarter of its staff by the middle of this year.
The agency said it has been working with the United States and sharing information for the past year. It was not clear how the collaboration would work going forward.
Global health experts said this posed risks for the United States, the WHO and the world.
“The withdrawal of the United States from the WHO could weaken the systems and collaborations that the world depends on to detect, prevent and respond to health threats,” said Kelly Henning, public health program leader at Bloomberg Philanthropies, a non-profit organization based in the United States.
(Reporting by Jennifer Rigby and Emma Farge, additional reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in Davos; Editing by David Gregorio)