On Monday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization.
What is behind the action, and what could its effect be? The World Health Organization (WHO), a United Nations health agency that assists in protecting the health and safety of the world’s population, receives nearly a fifth of its budget from the United States.
Donald Trump has blasted the World Health Organization as “corrupt” and accused it of ripping America off. Thousands of Americans who voted for him are highly skeptical of the worth of such foreign organizations. However, professionals have warned that revoking WHO’s most prominent member could endanger world health.
In a statement on Tuesday, the organization revealed it regretted the United States’ determination, pointing out that it had “over the past 7 years enforced the biggest group of reforms in its record, to change our responsibility, cost-impactfulness, and affect in nations.”
The United States’ withdrawal from the World Health Organization was the most momentous executive order signed on Monday. Below is how Trump’s decision could influence global health in general.
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What Who Does
The World Health Organization is one of the many global organizations that developed after World War II. After the world was scattered by nationalism and dispute, nations surrendered some of their sovereignty for the general good.
The agency was introduced in 1948 to secure global health. Its constitution, signed by all United Nations members present, cautioned that unequal development in the health structures of various nations was a common harm. The institution aims to accomplish this by ensuring everyone has the highest feasible health level.
The US Surgeon General Thomas Parran stated that WHO was more than a health agency; it was, however, a potent instrument developed for peace that would contribute to the peace of human relations.
Currently, the organization operates in more than 150 destinations globally, leads actions to develop universal health protection, and directs the foreign response to health emergencies, including cholera, ebola, and yellow fever.
Hence, the organization has been condemned for being incapable, opaque, overly dependent on individual supporters, and restricted by political concerns.
What It Has Achieved
The World Health Organization’s most prominent accomplishment was the termination of smallpox, which highlighted an unusual example of cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
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In 1967, the institution set the ambitious target of eliminating all ailments in 10 years. The last major incident was in Somalia in 1977. Since the agency is so large, its impacts are usually diffused. In 1980, the World Health Organization declared smallpox eradicated.
Recently, it has led responses to ailment outbreaks such as Ebola in West Africa, which killed about 11,000 of more than 28,000 individuals contracted from 2014/2016. Operating with local authorities, the World Health Organization performed a study on the security of a newly generated vaccine.
Why Donald Trump Wants to Withdraw
Trump initially attempted to leave the World Health Organization during his first term in 2020, charging the institution with seriously mismanaging and covering up the spread of COVID-19.
Donald Trump has long stated that he believes the coronavirus developed in a laboratory in Wuhan, China, which Beijing has sought to obscure. Notably, the World Health Organization shared some of Trump’s worries and demanded that China be more transparent in December to assist the world in understanding how the pandemic started.
At the time of his recent election campaign, Trump was extra brazen, describing the institution as “nothing more than a corrupt globalist fraud” which disgracefully protected the trails of the Chinese Communist Party.”
By concentrating on the origins of COVID-19, Trump has understated the role that the World Health Organization, which the United States spearheads, played in fighting the virus once it started to spread.
What Occurs Next
It took 12 months to withdraw entirely from the organization, which is why Biden, in one of the first efforts of his presidency, was able to stop the United States’ exit four years ago.
However, there are signals that the exit could be faster this time. Monday’s executive order requested the secretary of state and director of the Office of Management and Budget to halt financing with all practicable speed.
Perhaps expecting Trump’s departure, the World Health Organization introduced an application earlier this month for $1.5 billion in financing to address 42 ongoing health emergencies. However, the agency refused to make that connection on a call with reporters on Friday, just a few days before Trump entered office.
For more than seven decades, the World Health Organization and the United States have saved countless lives and protected Americans and all individuals from health risks. Together, they ended smallpox and brought polio to the peak of eradication. Therefore, this decision could delay polio eradication and affect actions to fight HIV and tuberculosis.
