

Mint Explainer | US exits WHO: What it means for global health and America
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The US has formally withdrawn from the World Health Organization (WHO), a year after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to begin the process.
The move deprives the global health body of its largest donor and deepens a funding crisis that WHO officials warn is already disrupting essential health services worldwide. Public health experts say the decision could weaken both global health security and public health in the US.
Mint explains what has changed, why it happened, and what it means. The US announced on 22 January 2026 that it has completed its withdrawal from the WHO, a year after President Trump signed an executive order on 20 January 2025 directing the government to initiate the exit, a step he had also attempted during his first term in 2020 over the organization’s “response to Covid-19".
Over the past year, Washington has terminated all funding to the WHO, and US personnel and contractors assigned to or embedded with the agency have been recalled from WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, and from WHO offices worldwide, according to a fact sheet released by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Thursday. Hundreds of US engagements with WHO have been suspended or discontinued, and the country has ceased official participation in WHO-sponsored committees, leadership bodies, governance structures, and technical working groups, the HHS said.
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