President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly planning to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization.
The Trump transition team is already working on pulling the nation from the global health body on the first day of his second term, removing the WHO's biggest source of funding, a global health expert revealed.
"I have it on good authority that he plans to withdraw, probably on Day One or very early in his administration," Lawrence Gostin, Georgetown University global health professor and director of the WHO Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law, told Reuters.
The United States is the WHO's largest donor, making up about 16% of its funding in 2022-23, the Financial Times noted.
The WHO is a global organization that connects nations to promote health and ensure billions of people have access to universal health coverage and are equipped during health emergencies.
While some on Trump's team want to initiate the process immediately, Gostin told FT that it was not clear whether the president-elect would make it his top priority when he takes his seat in office on January 20, 2025.
Ashish Jha, President Joe Biden’s former COVID-19 response coordinator, said that some of Trump's allies "do not trust the WHO and want to symbolically show on day one that they are out."
Should plans push through, this is not the first time that Trump has suspended funding to the WHO. In 2020, during the height of the pandemic, the then-45th U.S. president halted the funding while a review was conducted after claims the organization was "severely mismanaging" its budget.
Aside from its effect on global health initiatives and emergency response, Gostin warned that a U.S. withdrawal may strengthen China.
"The U.S. would lose influence and clout in global health and China would fill the vacuum. I can't imagine a world without a robust WHO. But U.S. withdrawal would severely weaken the agency," Gostin told Reuters.
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