Just hours after his inauguration on Monday, January 20, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the US from the World Health Organization (WHO). It’s an expected decision that should reshuffle the global health cards and, according to experts, considerably complicate the fight against future pandemics.
In the text, Trump cited several reasons for the withdrawal, including WHO’s “mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic” and “failure to adopt urgently needed reforms.” Trump said the agency was demanding “unfairly onerous payments” from the US, and complained that China was paying less.
The big question now is whether Trump can really decide on his own to leave the UN organization. The US joined the WHO in 1948 on the basis of a joint Congressional resolution that gave the country the unique option of withdrawing from the organization. Nothing in the WHO Constitution specifies the framework for a country’s eventual departure.
‘Cataclysmic repercussions’
It is precisely this historic resolution that could force the American president to have his choice validated by elected members of Congress. “But it’s highly unlikely that this decision will be challenged, as Republicans control both chambers,” said Lawrence Gostin, an expert in national and global health law at Georgetown University in Washington.
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