Understanding the Impact of US Withdrawal from the World Health Organization: Unexamined Domestic Consequences and a Shared Vulnerability

I. Introduction

On January 20, 2025 – the first day of his presidency – Donald Trump issued an executive order withdrawing the United States (US) from the World Health Organization (WHO). This decision, one of the first policies President Trump invoked during his second term, ended 75 years of US leadership with the global health agency of which it was a founding member (World Health Organization: About WHO). Additionally, according to the executive order, the United States will no longer provide financial support, transfer supplies, or offer employment to WHO (Withdrawing The United States From The World Health Organization, 2025). While many might see this order from Trump as an impulsive act, this is not the first time that the President tried to pull out of WHO; in July of 2020, near the end of Trump’s first presidency, he unsuccessfully attempted to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization (Taylor & Habibi, 2020).

Much has been written about the implications of the United States’ withdrawal from WHO for global health, particularly in low-income, developing countries. However, less attention has been paid to the effects of the withdrawal on the United States at a domestic level. This paper will endeavor to fill this scholarly gap by analyzing the potential ramifications of the US withdrawal from WHO, pertaining specifically to the United States. Although not all of the effects of the US departure from WHO membership can be addressed with certainty, it is possible to postulate the likely outcomes.

This paper will examine how the executive order will likely have critical effects on not only the public health and protection of American citizens but also the global political influence and economic well-being of the US. The main implications of this withdrawal, as it relates to the United States, will be an increase in population vulnerability on a domestic scale, a marked decrease in effective coordination and cooperation with other states at the global level, and a potential economic impact on American corporations. Section 2 of this paper will provide an overview of the World Health Organization (including its history and funding), as well as an analysis of the United States’ influence on global health governance through WHO. Section 3 will discuss the main implications of US withdrawal on the domestic front, including population vulnerability, global cooperation and coordination, and a potential negative impact on US corporations directly and indirectly involved in the global health sector. Section 4 will conclude the argument presented in this paper and address the circumstances of the US withdrawal.

II. Overview of The World Health Organization and Global Consequences of US Withdrawal from the Organization

A. History and Organization of WHO

Established in 1948, the World Health Organization is one of the largest specialized agencies in the United Nations, composed of 194 Member States. With its headquarters located in Switzerland, six primary regional offices, and thousands of smaller offices dispersed among Member States, the World Health Organization has traditionally served a central role in the protection and promotion of global health (World Health Organization: About Us). WHO’s primary contributions are accurately identifying and responding to surfacing health threats, collecting data from Member States to monitor disease outbreaks, supplying medical equipment and vaccines globally, establishing global health policy guidelines and standards, and conducting research to develop solutions to health issues (Walson, 2025).

In past years, the World Health Organization has seen success in a wide range of global health concerns, starting with eliminating the threat of smallpox, diminishing the prevalence of polio, adopting the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, establishing the International Health Regulations agreement, and, more recently, taking numerous steps to combat the COVID-19 pandemic (Bertozzi & Lu, 2025). Critically, it also serves a normative role, developing a platform for Member States to establish binding and non-binding international standards (Taylor, 2019).

Despite these contributions, WHO has long been criticized for inefficiency and mismanagement (Taylor & Habibi, 2020).

B. WHO Funding and US Contribution

The funding to support various programs, projects, and research conducted and implemented by the World Health Organization is provided through a required contribution from each Member State of the Organization (calculated based on the population and economy of the state) and voluntary contributions made by specific Member States and private administrations (The U.S. Government and the World Health Organization, 2025). Some of these independent donors include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the GA VI Alliance, and Rotary International, which have all made voluntary contributions to WHO. Its budget for 2024 and 2025, for example, was around $6.8 billion, and it was composed of equal parts required and voluntary expenses (The U.S. Government and the World Health Organization, 2025). Specifically, the US is the largest Member State donor to WHO, representing around 15% of its total budget biannually (Freidman & Wetter, 2020).

C. US Withdrawal from WHO

Despite its contributions to global health, WHO has long been held in disfavor by President Trump. In 2019, Trump stated that WHO was not properly managing and effectively responding to the COVID-19 crisis, and attempted to withdraw the United States from the Organization in 2020 (Taylor & Habibi, 2020). However, this attempt failed because Congress required the US to give a one-year notice before it could successfully withdraw from the Organization (as per the Joint Resolution), and, when Joe Biden was elected as Trump’s successor, he overturned the decision to leave WHO (Taylor & Habibi, 2020).

In 2025, with roughly the same reasoning, Trump withdrew the US from WHO on his first day in office, claiming it was a result of WHO’s “mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, and other global health crises and its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms” (Trump, 2025). Although beyond the scope of this paper, it should be acknowledged that numerous scholars have questioned both the legality and motivations of Trump’s decision to leave the World Health Organization in both 2019 and now in 2025 (Freidman & Wetter, 2020).

D. Global Public Health Consequences of US Withdrawal

The United States’ departure will be a major loss for global health. As the largest state donor to WHO, the United States provides financial, material, and human resources to test and identify virus and disease, respond to health threats, create specialized workforces, and assist with many other actions that were essential to the functioning of the World Health Organization and the protection and promotion of global health (Freidman & Wetter, 2020). Without this support from the US, WHO may have to undergo serious reconstruction to manage the responsibilities the US had fulfilled for such a long time, resulting in detrimental effects to global health issues around the world. Low-income countries will especially be impacted in future years without the United States’ help (as funding will be cut), and those countries will not be able to support the work done by WHO without other states stepping up. Notably, the US withdrawal from WHO was coupled with a dismantling of USAID, meaning that the loss of funds to the Organization will not be substituted by bilateral or other multilateral aid to low-income nations.

Furthermore, without funding from the United States, the rest of the world will be at risk of disease outbreaks. The World Health Organization uses the funding from the US to support emergency response indicators, trace virus cases and outbreaks, build workforces to address outbreaks, and create and test vaccines (Wetter & Friedman, 2020). Without these technologies– proven to be effective when past health threats arose, such as COVID-19– the population will be at risk when infectious diseases spread due to the unpreparedness of WHO without these disease-identifying tools. Viruses and health threats that could have easily been immobilized with US support may now be a greater issue than ever before (Brownstein, 2025).

III. Domestic Consequences of US Withdrawal

Although other Member States in the World Health Organization will bear the brunt of the effects caused by the United States’ withdrawal, many domestic issues may arise due to its departure as well. Alternatively, although the global public health impact of US withdrawal has been most widely considered, the effect on the US population and interests is also significant. This impact can be understood in 3 key areas: population vulnerability, global influence and coordination, and an impact on American corporations.

A. Population Vulnerability

The most apparent domestic implication of the US withdrawing from the World Health Organization is increased population vulnerability. In this context, vulnerability refers to the susceptibility of Americans to the effects of disease outbreaks and their likelihood of being affected by global health threats. As of right now, the executive order provides no specific information regarding the United States’ relationship with WHO in future years, but the Trump administration has implied that no contact or coordination will be made with the World Health Organization after the United States’ withdrawal, including, but not limited to, no access to WHO research and information (Brownstein, 2025). The lack of accessibility to WHO resources and coordination with WHO might put the US population at heightened risk of infectious diseases and other health threats.

Primarily, the United States may lose access to the World Health Organization’s international disease surveillance, potentially compromising Americans’ ability to effectively combat health problems. Many researchers have claimed that without access to WHO disease identification/tracking, early warning notifications, and detection efforts, it may be very challenging to prepare adequate solutions to emerging health threats (Yazdi-Feyzabadi et al., 2025). Judd Walson, Robert E. Blackchair of International Health, provides a hypothetical situation regarding a global disease outbreak and how the United States would be affected without coordination with WHO (Walson, 2025). Specifically, he explains that when a regional World Health Organization center identifies a local outbreak and reports it to the state level (where it is then deemed as a health threat), Member States are informed about the health issue, and they work together to stop the spread through intense research and prevention plans– all done on a global scale. However, due to the United States’ withdrawal, it may have no access to the outbreak data or whether the virus is a health concern. Moreover, there is a possibility that the US will have no voice in disease prevention measures or access to information regarding the virus collected by WHO researchers and laboratories. Without this critical data, the US might be behind other countries when global health threats emerge, and, since diseases know no borders, when these infectious diseases inevitably spread to the US, the population may be more susceptible to the effects of these diseases.

Additionally, without having access to WHO research and medical data, the pre-existing federal programs in the United States may be disrupted. Lawrence Gostin, a professor at the World Health Organization Collaborating Center at Georgetown University, emphasizes that federal agencies like the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) will have no access to the laboratories, research, data, tracking, and overall information gathered by the World Health Organization regarding viruses and outbreaks as a consequence of US withdrawal. Furthermore, the National Institute of Health (NIH), which is responsible for developing vaccines and other virus prevention technology, will lose crucial information that WHO has provided to it in years prior (Gostin, 2025). This may cause severe setbacks for federal programs such as the CDC and NIH because these agencies could potentially have to restructure how they operate without direct data from WHO and find new means of obtaining information essential to their cause. If re-shaping federal agencies through identifying alternate data sources is required to address information gaps, it could likely take a much longer time to find solutions to health-related issues in the United States, thereby making Americans more vulnerable.

It cannot be stated with certainty that the United States will have absolutely no ties to the World Health Organization, and what the full ramifications of it will entail. However, it can be noted that by not being a WHO Member State, the US is more likely to be unprepared to respond to a health crisis. Further, if the rest of the world is put at increased risk due to the US withdrawal from WHO, then the US will also be at increased risk; with the rise of intense globalization, the world is increasingly connected, meaning a health crisis that occurs in one state may have effects internationally. Without being able to monitor outbreaks, infectious diseases may spread rapidly and affect a larger portion of the population– intensifying the risk of health threats (Yazdi-Feyzabadi et. al., 2025).

B. Global Influence and Coordination

Arguably, the most important implication of the US withdrawal from the World Health Organization for the United States will be a loss of coordination with other states and US influence in the realm of global health. The US was a founding member of WHO in 1948 and has played a highly influential role in its growth, development, and public health priorities. In 2023, the US alone provided around $481,000,000 to WHO– 15% of the total budget (The U.S. Government and the World Health Organization, 2025). Being the largest state donor to WHO, the US was also heavily involved in many WHO and WHO-related activities, such as being an active participant in the annual World Health Assembly (WHA), which aims to facilitate health policies, negotiations, and structure WHO’s internal organization, thereby shaping the functions and priorities of the Organization. Prior to its departure, the US was also highly influential in treaty negotiations at WHO, like the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the Pandemic Agreement, and the International Health Regulations (The U.S. Government and the World Health Organization, 2025).

Additionally, the United States has traditionally been influential at the Secretariat level as experts and advisors, as well as creating collaborating centers for major programmes of WHO. Specifically, the US provides resources to conduct research, leads specialized advisory boards, creates new medical innovations and technology, and assists with implementing outbreak response measures (The U.S. Government and the World Health Organization, 2025). It should be noted that many of these WHO collaborating centers in the US are not strictly government-owned (ex. WHO collaborating centers at universities); however, these privately owned collaborating centers may still experience loss indirectly if the government decides to constrain funding. Bertozzi and Lu (2025), leaders in public health, have even established that (before withdrawing) the United States had the most influence over World Health Organization procedures. This withdrawal from WHO will change the United States’ role as a former leader in global health.

One easily identifiable consequence of non-membership is that the US will no longer be an active participant in global health discussions conducted by WHO. Providing a neutral platform for all 194 Member States, WHO enabled the United States to collaborate and cooperate with countries it had never previously aligned with (Bertozzi & Lu, 2025). The US’s influential role in meetings, such as the WHA, meant that global health policies from the United States would be a top priority for all Member States to comply with, ensuring that the United States’ values and priorities would almost always be considered in global health measures. Further, widespread use of specialized funding for programs at WHO further enabled the US to shape the key policies of the Organization; however, considering its withdrawal, future global health policies and priorities made by WHO may no longer take the United States’ perspective and interests into account (Johnson et al., 2025).

Furthermore, the United States may lose much of its soft power in the global health sector. Soft power, according to Joseph Nye (2019), is “the ability to affect others to obtain the outcomes one wants through attraction and persuasion” (Nye, 2019). The United States held an immense amount of soft power through the World Health Organization, as it effectively shaped treaties, policies, and measures through its influence. But, by leaving WHO, the US has ultimately created a “leadership vacuum”, allowing numerous developed Member States to fight for the dominant role the US will no longer fulfill (Wandiga et al., 2025). Some experts have reason to believe that China might take on a sufficient degree of leadership in the World Health Organization without the United States’ presence (Johnson et al., 2025), meaning China (or any other Member State that takes on a leadership role) could potentially have the bulk of the soft power to influence global health policies with the rest of the Member States following their lead. This would be troublesome for the United States, as it is possible that whichever state assumes a top position in WHO could have vastly different global health priorities, resulting in a lack of proper cooperation between the US and the World Health Organization and deflating US influence.

C. Impact on profits of American Corporations

The most ambiguous implication of the United States’ withdrawal from WHO at this time is the effect it may have on US corporations in the health sector. Although no direct research has been conducted on the consequences that the withdrawal will have on the economic sector of the US, numerous questions arise regarding how the fortunes of American corporations working in the global health field, from pharmaceutical manufacturers to creators of medical instrumentation, may change after the departure is fully in effect. Also to be considered is the 2 potential impact on US corporations that may be subject to future international regulation by WHO Member States, including producers of alcohol and foods related to the global obesity challenge involved in international trade, without the input of the US in WHO treaty negotiations.

To start, the withdrawal from the World Health Organization may impact the United States’ economic statecraft. Economic statecraft is defined as “a country’s pursuit of geopolitical objectives using economic power” (Grotto & McMaster, 2025). With the amount of money it has provided to the World Health Organization in previous years, it is reasonable to claim that the US had a substantial amount of economic statecraft to achieve its goal of being a leader in global health and advance the economic interests of US corporations. This means that without economic contribution to WHO and the US being less influential in global health governance, US corporations related to global health may also be less dominant in the health sector as foreign health corporations rise, potentially affecting the profits and success of domestic corporations. Without coordination between US health policies and health policies of other Member States in WHO, domestic companies and businesses may have a harder time expanding to overseas markets or collaborating with foreign health corporations, further hindering the success of US corporations in the health division.

Additionally, US corporations may spend additional monies replacing the international research and medical technology provided by past coordination with the World Health Organization. As of now, there is no public information on whether the World Health Organization will be open to sharing this information with non-Member States; however, in the scenario that it chooses not to, domestic companies may have to change their approach on how to accumulate this health data. For example, when creating a vaccine, WHO undergoes copious 3 experiments, trials, and assessments to ensure that the vaccine is ready to be sold to manufacturers, all of which require resources and research conducted throughout the Member States of WHO (WHO: How are vaccines developed and produced?, 2025). If WHO does not share this crucial information with US corporations dedicated to manufacturing vaccines, those corporations might have to spend large sums of money to replicate the level of research that WHO conducts on its vaccines, altogether changing their profits.

IV . Conclusion

President Trump’s executive order to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization will likely have extensive effects on the domestic front, including population vulnerability without access to WHO disease detection technologies and vast research on various health threats; a loss of global influence for the United States, as it will not be able to promote its interests to other Member States in WHO when creating global health policies; and negative economic implications for American corporations in the health sector. Altogether, the United States’ departure from WHO makes the world a more dangerous place for infectious diseases, viruses, and various other health threats to affect even greater populations than they already do.

It is sufficient to note that the US has also removed itself from the Paris Climate Agreement (Wandiga et. al., 2025), shut down USAID (Tanis & Fadel, 2025), and is to withdraw from UNESCO by the end of 2026 (Bruce, 2025) – all of which the US has been an active participant of in previous years. These departures, grouped with the World Health Organization, may leave the US completely isolated in the future when assistance is needed. The US may also have an increasingly difficult time staying at the forefront of global leadership without connections to these international organizations and relationships with other states through these 4 forums. This may put the US in a predicament when problems arise that require global cooperation, as it seems the US is focused on removing itself from many organizations that promote and support collaboration globally.

The world as a whole possesses a shared vulnerability; withdrawing from the World Health Organization (as well as various other global organizations) makes the United States a increasingly dangerous place, which, in turn, makes the world a more dangerous place.

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