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The United States’ withdrawal from the World Health Organisation (WHO) has officially taken effect today.
This comes one year after US President Donald Trump ordered the country’s withdrawal from the WHO just hours after taking office.
Under the agreement between the US and the organisation, the withdrawal takes effect after a mandatory one-year notice period, which ends today.
One of the conditions for withdrawal in the agreement, which is for the US to pay its agreed financial contributions in full, has not been met.
However, the WHO has no mechanism to compel payment or block the withdrawal.
Tedros Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, said he hopes that the US will reconsider its decision and rejoin the organisation, adding that the “withdrawal is a loss for the US and also a loss for the rest of the world”.
In 2025, shortly after taking office, Trump signed an executive order kick-starting the process of pulling out the US from the WHO.
Trump said the move was due to the organisation’s “mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, and other global health crises, its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states”.
The executive order also said WHO required “unfairly onerous payments” from the US that are disproportionate to the sums provided by other larger countries such as China.
During the signing of the order, Trump said “World Health ripped us off, everybody rips off the United States. It’s not going to happen anymore”.
The US departure has sparked a budgetary crisis at WHO, forcing the organisation to halve its management team and scale back operations, with budget cut across the agency.
The US has traditionally been the organisation’s biggest financial backer, contributing around 18 percent of its overall funding.
