Trump Signs Executive Order Withdrawing the United States From the World Health Organization
On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14155 at the White House in Washington, announcing the withdrawal of the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO) and revoking a series of documents through which the previous administration had kept the United States in the organization. It was among the series of executive orders Trump signed on his first day in office.
The order lists its reasons for the withdrawal: the organization's mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China; its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms; its failure to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states; and its continued demand for unfairly onerous financial payments from the United States, far out of proportion with other countries' assessed payments. By way of example, the order states that China, with a population of about 1.4 billion — three times that of the United States — contributes nearly 90 percent less to the WHO than the United States does.
The order revokes the presidential letter President Biden sent to the U.N. Secretary-General on January 20, 2021, which had retracted the Trump administration's 2020 withdrawal notification, and it revokes Executive Order 13987 of the same date, Organizing and Mobilizing the United States Government to Provide a Unified and Effective Response to Combat COVID-19 and to Provide United States Leadership on Global Health and Security.
On implementation, the order directs the Secretary of State and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to take all appropriate measures to pause the future transfer of any United States government funds, support or resources to the WHO; agencies are to recall and reassign U.S. government personnel and contractors working with the organization; and the Secretary of State and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs are to identify credible U.S. and international partners to assume the necessary activities previously undertaken by the WHO.
The order also directs the Director of the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy to review, and replace if necessary, the 2024 United States Global Health Security Strategy, and directs the Secretary of State to immediately inform the U.N. Secretary-General, the relevant depositary and WHO leadership of the U.S. withdrawal.
The World Health Organization is the United Nations system's specialized agency for international public health, founded in 1948 and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland; the United States is one of its founding members. In 2020, the Trump administration submitted notice of a U.S. withdrawal from the organization; on his first day in office in 2021, President Biden retracted that notice by presidential letter, keeping the United States in the organization — and it is that retraction letter that this order revokes. Under the organization's arrangements, a member state's withdrawal ordinarily requires one year's notice; with the signing of this order on January 20, the U.S. withdrawal process began, with the steps that followed to depend on the notification and handover.
(Source: The White House)
Source: The White House
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: GSM 行政令统一模板（美国总统行政令）
