Members of President-elect Donald Trump’s team informed health experts of their plans to announce the US withdrawal from the World Health Organization on inauguration day, January 20, The Financial Times reported late Sunday night. The move would strip WHO, a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for global public health of its largest financial contributor, significantly hindering its capacity to address global health crises.
One source familiar with the Trump transition team’s plans told the Financial Times: “The same WHO that we left in the first administration? It seems like we wouldn’t much care what they have to say.”
WHO’s projected budget for 2024-25 is $6.83 billion. In 2024 the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was the organization’s major private contributor, funding 10% of its budget.
The United States, historically the largest contributor to the World Health Organization, used to provide more than $400 million annually. In April 2020, President Trump announced that his administration would suspend funding to the WHO. The funding was withheld for 60 to 90 days pending an investigation into the WHO’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly regarding its alleged ties to China.
By May 16, 2020, the Trump administration agreed to contribute an amount equivalent to China’s assessed contributions, which was a fraction—less than one-tenth—of its prior commitment. For the 2018-2019 biennium, China contributed $75.8 million in assessed contributions and $10.2 million in voluntary contributions, totaling $86 million.
Lawrence Gostin, professor of global health at Georgetown Law, told the FT: “America is going to leave a huge vacuum in global health financing and leadership. I see no one that is going to fill the breach.” Gostin added that the plan to withdraw “on day one” would be “catastrophic” for global health.
The Associated Press reported in 2017 that the World Health Organization spends approximately $200 million annually on travel expenses—an amount greater than its combined expenditures on mental health, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. In 2016, Margaret Chan, the WHO’s director-general from 2007 to 2017, came under scrutiny for staying in a $1,000-per-night hotel room during a visit to West Africa.
WHO VS. ISRAEL
On May 25, 2021, WHO issued a draft decision proposed by Algeria, Andorra, Bahrain, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, South Africa, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and Yemen calling on WHO’s Director-General “to ensure non-discriminatory, affordable and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines to the protected occupied population in the occupied Palestinian territory including East Jerusalem and in the occupied Syrian Golan in compliance with the International Law.”
Contrary to the statements by WHO’s most repressive members in the Middle East and Africa, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported in March 2020: “Since the start of the crisis, the Palestinian and Israeli authorities have maintained a close, unprecedented cooperation on efforts aimed at containing the epidemic.”
“Representatives from both ministries of health, as well as from Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), have been meeting on a regular basis to agree on matters of mutual concern, such as the understandings concerning Palestinian workers employed in Israel.”
The OCHA report noted that as part of these efforts, COGAT “is facilitating four trainings for Palestinian medical teams, while the Israeli Ministry of Health donated over 1,000 testing kits and thousands of PPEs to the West Bank and Gaza.”
