Trump Left The World Health Org Last Year. Now, He’s Replacing It.

The Trump administration is setting up an alternate system to monitor global disease outbreaks and assist in response in direct competition with the World Health Administration.

President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the WHO last year, citing complaints he has had about the United Nations health body dating back to his first term. The Trump administration is now spending billions to set up an alternative, according to The Washington Post.

The Department of Health and Human Services, run by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is spearheading the effort to set up the new, U.S.-led global health body. The new agency will be built on dozens of bilateral agreements between the United States and other countries and extend the HHS’ international footprint to many more countries than it is currently operating in.

“This $2 billion in funding to HHS is to build the systems and capacities to do what the WHO did for us,” an official told the Post. Kennedy’s department has already requested the funds from the Office of Management and Budget.

Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his second term withdrawing the United States from the WHO, citing an unfair cost burden that it placed on the United States and the agency’s poor handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“So, we paid $500 million to World Health when I was here and I terminated it,” said Trump, referring to his first term when he initially withdrew from the organization. The president added that the cost to the United States “seemed a little unfair” in the context of what China paid to the WHO.

“China pays $39 million and we pay $500 million, and China’s a bigger country,” said Trump.

The financial burden the WHO placed on the United States had been substantially larger than the figure the president cited, according to HHS data. Assessed dues and voluntary contributions that the United States paid to the UN health agency amounted to roughly $680 million a year, amounting to 15-18% of the WHO’s total funding, the Post reported.

The president’s executive order also cites the WHO’s actions during the pandemic. Trump initially withdrew from the body in 2020 because of “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.”