President Trump announced an executive order on Monday to withdraw the U.S. from W.H.O. and the Paris agreement.
President Trump’s executive order on Monday stated, “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,”
The Paris Agreement is an international treaty on climate change signed by 175 parties. In 2016, the two biggest contributors to carbon emissions, the U.S. and China, signed the agreement.
The executive order made to remove the U.S. from the Paris Agreement states, “The United States Ambassador to the United Nations shall immediately submit formal written notification of the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.”
President Trump has been a long-standing opponent of the World Health Organization, especially with how they handled the COVID-19 pandemic. In July 2020, his administration began the process of removing the U.S. from WHO, but when Biden was elected, he undid Trump’s efforts of removal.
In 2020, President Trump also accused WHO of aiding China in covering up the origins of COVID-19, so it’s no surprise that he would make the U.S. exiting WHO a priority upon his inauguration.
This decision has caused an uproar from health experts such as Dr. Ashish Jha, who served as White House COVID-19 response coordinator during the Biden administration. Dr. Aishsh Jha told CNN in an interview that, “WHO is a pretty essential organization — and with America’s withdrawal, it creates a political vacuum that only one country can fill — and that is China.”
The consequences for this withdrawal may cause the U.S. to lose access to the global network that sets the flu vaccine’s composition every year.
Many officials worry that this decision was an error by President Trump, and many await what he will do next.
