President Donald Trump throws pens used to sign executive orders to the crowd during an indoor Presidential Inauguration parade eveny
| Photo Credit: Matt Rourke
Signing his first batch of executive orders following his return to the White House on January 20, 2025, Donald Trump announced the United States’ withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO). Mr. Trump accused WHO of being biased towards China and mishandling the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is not the first time Mr. Trump has chosen to withdraw from the WHO. He took steps to leave the organisation in 2020 for the same reason. However, the Joe Biden administration decided to continue the partnership.
Close to 45% of Americans agreed with Mr. Trump’s assessment back in 2020, according to the Global Attitudes Survey conducted by the Pew Research Center. The share of people with a similar opinion in the U.K. was 10 points lower at 34% and even lower at 31% and 30% in Canada and Germany, respectively.
Chart 1 shows how respondents viewed the WHO’s handling of the pandemic.
In a 2024 survey by Pew, close to 40% of U.S. citizens said the country was benefiting “not at all” or “not too much” from being a member of the WHO compared to the 34% who said so in 2021.
Chart 2 shows the respondents’ views on whether the U.S. gains from WHO membership.
These trends indicate a growing negative sentiment among Americans towards WHO.
Republicans were only half as likely as Democrats to say that the U.S. benefits from the WHO. While close to 80% of Democrats or Democratic-leaning people said in 2024 that the U.S. benefits from the WHO, only 38% of Republicans and Republican-leaning respondents said so.
Chart 3 shows the views of Republicans and Democrats on whether the U.S. gains from the WHO.
The figure declined even further if only conservative Republicans were considered. Such opinions could have potentially influenced Mr. Trump’s decision.
As per the latest executive order, the U.S. will pause the future transfer of any funds, support, or resources to WHO. This is a massive blow to WHO as the U.S. is its largest contributor. The U.S. has consistently contributed close to 15% of WHO’s total funding since at least 2016-17. Its share dipped to 8.9% during 2020-21, when COVID-19 was at its peak, but went back again to the usual levels in the post-pandemic years. It contributed a record $1.2 billion in the biennium period for 2022-23.
Chart 4 shows how the funds from the U.S. are being utilised by the WHO.
WHO’s other major contributors in the latest year (2024-25) include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (12.9%), the GAVI Alliance (9.91%), the European Commission (8.06%) and the World Bank (5.34%). The share of contributions from China accounted for 3%.
Will some other country step up to fill the financial vacuum left by the U.S.? Those are big shoes to fill as no country’s contribution has exceeded 5% of the total funding received by WHO. Among countries, Germany and the U.K. are in a distant second and third place, respectively, as per latest data.
Chart 5 shows how the funds from the U.S. are being utilised by WHO. In 2024-25, close to 26% of the funds were used to improve access to quality health services globally, 21% to respond rapidly to acute health emergencies, 20% for polio eradication, and close to 10% for prevention of epidemics and pandemics. Mr. Trump’s decision to halt funding will have a cascading effect on these initiatives.
The President’s order also calls for the recall and reassignment of U.S. personnel working in any capacity with the global public health body. This could potentially impact the staff in WHO collaboration centres in the U.S. These centres implement WHO’s objectives and engage in collaborative research with the institutions it is a part of. The U.S. has the most number of WHO collaborating centres (79), followed by India and China
Chart 6 shows the top 10 countries with the most WHO contribution centres.
Source: PEW Research Centre, WHO
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Published – February 05, 2025 08:00 am IST