Donald Trump signs order to withdraw US from World Health Organization | Donald Trump’s inauguration

Donald Trump said the US will leave the World Health Organization, saying the global health agency had mishandled the Covid-19 pandemic and other international health crises.

The move means the US will leave the UN health agency in 12 months and stop all financial contributions to its work. The United States is by far the WHO’s largest financial supporter, contributing about 18% of its total funding. WHO’s latest two-year budget, for 2024-2025, was $6.8 billion.

Trump also signed an executive order pausing foreign development aid for 90 days pending a review.

Trump said the WHO had failed to act independently of the “improper political influence of WHO member states” and demanded “unfairly burdensome payments” from the United States that are out of proportion to the amounts that other, larger countries such as China have delivered.

“World Health ripped us off, everybody ripped the United States off. It’s not going to happen again,” Trump said at the signing.

Trump’s withdrawal from the WHO is not unexpected. He took steps to leave the body in 2020, during his first term as president, accusing the WHO of aiding China’s efforts to “mislead the world” about the origins of Covid-19.

The WHO strongly denies the claim and says it continues to press Beijing to share data to determine whether Covid-19 arose from human contact with infected animals or from research into similar viruses in a domestic laboratory.