Trump threatens to withdraw from the WHO
- On This Day In The Trump Administration
- May 17, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: May 19, 2024
May 19: On This Day In 2020
Stomping on all good things: The World Health Organization (WHO) is one of humanity’s great triumphs of global coordination and solidarity, helping to provide better medicines and healthcare to billions around the globe. And, crucially, they fight disease outbreaks which keeps us all safer. But, like so many other institutions whose primary sin is that they were created by others who came before him, Trump apparently wanted to personally wreck it.
Hard to imagine a US president would want to do this: Trump scorned platforms which encouraged global cooperation, and specifically he did not like this organization’s connections to China. So OTDI 2020, the head of the WHO in Geneva received a letter from Trump which threatened to withdraw us from the org and terminate our nation’s financial support for their work on improving global health.
Many of Trump’s own cabinet members hoped he was bluffing, as ending the U.S.’s involvement would significantly set back efforts to fight dangerous diseases, including Covid, which was then strangling the planet. But only 11 days after sending his letter, he actually went ahead and used his authority to withdraw American support.
“To do this in the middle of a pandemic is breathtakingly dangerous,” said Nancy Cox, a former CDC virologist. “So I worry a lot about what’s going to happen to so many of the programs at WHO that were strongly supported financially and through expertise and consultation with the U.S. I just think it could be really bad.”
Yet again, Biden to the rescue: Thankfully, the United States abdicated our leadership role only until Trump left the White House eight months later. One of Biden’s first acts in office was to rejoin and express full support for WHO.
"This is very good news for America, for WHO and the world," said Lawrence Gostin, director of the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University in Washington.
Dive Deeper
ProPublica provides background reporting on Trump’s decision and the shock of his advisors
USA Today covers of Biden’s decision to rejoin the WHO
Summary: Trump threatens to withdraw from WHO; Biden brings us back in.