US officially leaves the World Health Organization

The United States officially withdrew from the World Health Organization on Thursday, slightly over a year after President Donald Trump announced his intention to withdraw the U.S. from the WHO via an executive order on the first day of his second term on Jan. 20, 2026. The decision was primarily due to the WHO’s messy response and failures during the COVID-19 pandemic, an occurrence Trump noted in his 2025 directive. 

“The United States noticed its withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2020 due to the organization’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, and other global health crises, its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states,”