The United States has formally withdrawn from the World Health Organization (WHO) as of January 22, 2026, executing an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on his first day back in office a year prior. The exit follows through on a long-threatened move and concludes a one-year notice period required by a 1948 congressional agreement. However, the departure is mired in controversy, as the U.S. is leaving without paying approximately $260 million in outstanding membership dues for 2024 and 2025, a step legal experts argue violates U.S. law and potentially invalidates a clean exit. The WHO, which has described the withdrawal as a "lose-lose" situation for global health security, is now forced to manage a severe budgetary crisis after losing its largest donor, which contributed roughly 18% of its funding.
In announcing the withdrawal, the Trump administration cited long-standing grievances with the UN health agency. The official executive order criticized the WHO's "mishandling" of the COVID-19 pandemic, its "failure to adopt urgently needed reforms," and what it described as unfair financial demands on American taxpayers. A State Department spokesperson stated the administration was pausing all future U.S. funding because the WHO's failures had "cost the U.S. trillions of dollars," framing the unpaid dues as a negligible offset to those losses. The order also immediately recalled U.S. personnel from the WHO and halted American participation in critical global negotiations, including on a new pandemic treaty.
The legality of the withdrawal process is contested. While the U.S. satisfied the one-year notice requirement, international law professor Lawrence Gostin stated that leaving without settling the $260 million in arrears is "a clear violation of U.S. law". The WHO's constitution contains no standard withdrawal clause, and the U.S.'s unique 1948 accession deal stipulated that both notice and full payment were prerequisites for departure. The final status of the withdrawal is now in the hands of the WHO's 194 member states, who are expected to debate and decide on the matter at executive board meetings beginning in February.
Public health leaders warn the consequences will be a "slow bleed" for both American and global health. The U.S. loses its seat at the table in global health governance, ceding influence to other nations, and risks being shut out of vital early-warning networks for infectious diseases like influenza and measles. Domestically, this could hinder the nation's ability to develop effective annual flu vaccines and respond swiftly to emerging threats. For the WHO, the financial blow has forced immediate cuts, including halving its management team and planning to shed a quarter of its staff by mid-2026, which will curtail life-saving programs for tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and polio eradication in the world's most vulnerable regions.