Mere hours into his second term in office, President Trump once again began the process to withdraw America from the WHO. Here’s what you need to know about this answer to our prayers.

From The Epoch Times. On his second term’s first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO), making good on a project from his first administration.

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Trump’s Jan. 20 order halted U.S. funding to the United Nations body, citing the WHO’s “mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China,” as well as other global health concerns. …

The Largest WHO Funder

The United States is currently the largest WHO funder, contributing about $1.28 billion during 2022–2023, the last reported year on the organization’s website. That equates to almost half of the WHO’s joint external evaluation missions for the last fiscal year.

The 2024–2025 fiscal year is shaping up similarly, with the United States serving as the largest donor by far, contributing an estimated $988 million, or roughly 14 percent of the WHO’s $6.9 billion budget. …

WHO Response

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described relations with the United States as “a good model partnership” during a press briefing in Geneva in December 2024. …

Following the announcement of Trump’s decision to remove the United States from the organization, Ghebreyesus spoke out, asking world leaders to push the White House to reverse the decision. …

CDC Response

Officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have ordered agency employees to stop working with the WHO, effective immediately.

John Nkengasong, the CDC’s deputy director for global health, sent a memo to agency leadership on Jan. 26 calling on staff to cease collaborating with the WHO immediately and wait for further guidance. …

Behind the Withdrawal

The Trump administration said the WHO was not able to demonstrate independence from the “inappropriate political influence” of member states and had failed to “adopt urgently needed reforms.”

The president’s executive order also cites “unfairly onerous payments” by the United States that Trump said are “far out of proportion with other countries’ assessed payments.”

“China, with a population of 1.4 billion, has 300 percent of the population of the United States, yet contributes nearly 90 percent less to the WHO,” the order stated. …

What do you think of the decision to withdraw from the WHO? Share your thoughts and prayers below.

(Excerpt from The Epoch Times. Photo Credit: United States Mission Geneva – Flickr: World Health Organization Headquarters and Flag, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18609992)