President Trump is making good on his preelection pledge to withdraw from the World Health Organization. In one of many orders issued after his inauguration, he announced the start of the process for terminating U.S. membership in the U.N. agency that oversees global health issues.
Trump's frustration with WHO goes back to the height of the COVID era. He's repeatedly criticized the organization for being too slow to respond to the pandemic and being "owned and controlled by China."
"World Health ripped us off," Trump said during an extended, relaxed discussion with reporters as he signed executive actions.
It will take a year for Trump's pledge to become official. That's the time frame the U.S. set for any future withdrawal when it joined the global health body in 1948. In Trump's first term, he halted funding to WHO and initiated the process of withdrawing. But before the one-year mark had been reached, Joe Biden took office and reversed course immediately.
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