Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Marco Rubio announced that the US was no longer a member of the WHO for the first time since its creation in 1948.
United States Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio have jointly announced the “complete” withdrawal of the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO).
The US has not been a member of the WHO since it joined as a founding member in 1948, it was announced on Thursday, even though US President Donald Trump had hinted at withdrawing from the body in 2020 during his first term in office.
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The joint statement by Rubio and Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic, primarily blamed the WHO’s “failures during the COVID-19 pandemic” as the reason for the withdrawal.
“Going forward, U.S. engagement with the WHO will be strictly limited to effecting our withdrawal and protecting the health and safety of the American people,” Rubio and Kennedy said, adding that all U.S. funding for the WHO has stopped.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters earlier this month that the organization had responded by cutting funding shortfalls related to the US withdrawal.
United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters on Thursday that “for all intents and purposes” the US “will no longer participate in the work of the World Health Organization”, but some “legal details will have to be worked out”.
“It is clear that the United States would like to see full participation in the work of the World Health Organization, as we would like to see every country,” Dujarric said.
“If there is a problem that clearly, that knows no borders, that does not respect territorial integrity, so to speak, there are health problems,” he said.
“Viruses, non-communicable diseases, all these issues need international cooperation and work on them. The World Health Organization is the place to do this,” he added.
‘Withdrawal is reckless and makes us all more vulnerable’
President Trump, who has Faced with criticism For his response to COVID-19, from him own top health authoritiesHe plans to withdraw the US from the Geneva-based WHO on January 20, 2025, the first day of his second term in the White House. However, a clause created by the US means that the withdrawal will not take effect until this week.
The WHO’s chief legal officer, Steven Solomon, told reporters earlier this month that the organization’s founders did not include a withdrawal clause because they envisioned it as “a truly universal organization that will make the world safer.”
However, Solomon said the provision was made that the US could withdraw from the body if it met two conditions: giving a year’s notice and meeting its “financial obligations … in full for the current fiscal year”, while also noting that the US was “in arrears on its payments” for 2024 and 2025.
Responding to the US withdrawal, public health lawyer Lucky Tran wrote on social media that “WHO has played a major role in bringing countries together to reduce deaths and disease at an unprecedented rate”.
“It’s not perfect by any means, but we can only improve it by participating. Withdrawals are reckless and make us more vulnerable,” Tran added.
The WHO, which represents all UN members except Liechtenstein, which has a population of less than 50,000 and had 194 members before the US withdrawal, often plays a coordinating role on health issues that cross international borders.
This includes proactively sending doctors and other health experts to help during humanitarian disasters, such as Israel’s genocidal war on GazaAlso responding to a wide range of infectious and non-infectious diseases, including Ebola And Tuberculosis.