One of President Donald Trump’s many executive orders purports to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO). This reprises an action taken in Trump’s first term, when the United States gave notice of withdrawal to the WHO in July of 2020. This notice of withdrawal was retracted by President Joe Biden. Trump has now re-initiated the withdrawal, instructing the secretary of state to give notice of withdrawal to the U.N. secretary-general, who serves as the treaty depository.
The executive order also instructs the secretary of state and the director of the Office of Management and Budget to “take appropriate measures, with all practical speed” to “pause the future transfer of any United States Government funds, support, or resources to the WHO.” The main reasons for withdrawal given in the executive order are frustration with the WHO’s handling of the COVID pandemic and the high dues paid by the United States relative to China.
As I wrote here at Just Security back in 2020, Trump’s twin mandates of withdrawal and nonpayment are in direct conflict with each other. Since, in the immortal words of Yogi Berra, it’s déjà vu all over again, let me reprise what I wrote then.
As a matter of international law, the U.S. power to withdraw from the WHO is based on two conditions: first, the United States must give one year’s notice of withdrawal, and second it must make full payment of all current dues prior to withdrawal. Back in 1948, when the U.S. House and Senate passed a joint resolution authorizing U.S. membership in the newly formed WHO, the WHO Constitution had no withdrawal condition. Anxious about this absence, Congress’s joint resolution included a specific provision regarding exit:
In adopting this joint resolution, the Congress does so with the understanding that, in the absence of any provision in the World Health Organization Constitution for withdrawal from the Organization, the United States reserves its right to withdraw from the Organization on a one-year notice: Provided, however, That the financial obligations of the United States to the Organization shall be met in full for the Organization’s current fiscal year. (62 Stat. 441, 442 (1948).)
I give more details about how this provision developed in the 2020 article.
The U.S. folded this joint resolution into its instrument of acceptance to the WHO Constitution. President Harry Truman specifically stated at the time that he was “acting pursuant to the authority granted by the joint resolution … and subject to the provisions of that joint resolution.” (62 Stat. 2792 (1948).)
Several weeks after the United States deposited its instrument of acceptance, the World Health Assembly, on July 2, 1948, unanimously adopted a resolution that “recognized the validity of the ratification by the United States of America.” In that era of history, customary international law was unclear about when a nation could withdraw from a treaty that did not contain a withdrawal clause. This WHO resolution ensured the United States a right to exit. But, as the U.N. Office of the Secretary-General’s depository website states, the United States accepted its membership in the WHO “subject to the provisions of the joint resolution” that it had attached to its instrument of acceptance.
The United States has not paid its assessed contributions to the WHO for 2025. (These contributions have not yet been authorized by Congress and were a contested issue between the House and the Senate in the still-not-passed FY2025 State Department and foreign operations appropriations bill). The United States has thus not met its financial obligations in full to the WHO for 2025. According to the terms of the joint resolution, it cannot withdraw until it has met these obligations.
As I wrote in 2020, there is also a question of whether Trump can withdraw the United States from the WHO as a matter of domestic law:
As a matter of U.S. domestic law, it is an open question whether the president can unilaterally withdraw the U.S. from the WHO or whether congressional approval is needed for withdrawal. Because the U.S. joined the WHO via a joint resolution rather than through the mechanism set out in the Constitution’s Treaty Clause, it is what is sometimes termed an ex post congressional-executive agreement. Presidents have withdrawn the U.S. from such agreements on a few prior occasions. President Ronald Reagan withdrew the U.S. from UNESCO; President George W. Bush rejoined the United States to UNESCO (without intervening action by Congress); and Trump then re-withdrew the U.S. from UNESCO. But there is no judicial precedent on whether such unilateral withdrawal is indeed permissible, and the president’s power to do so is contested.
Congress’ joint resolution with respect to the WHO did not specify whether congressional approval would be needed for withdrawal as a matter of domestic law. But it did make clear that withdrawal should be “on a one-year notice” and that U.S. financial contributions “shall” be fully satisfied prior to withdrawal. To withdraw in any other manner would therefore be “incompatible with the … will of Congress.”
I concluded then, as I do now:
Thus, at a minimum, Trump must choose between [withholding] U.S. assessed contributions and following through on his threat of withdrawal. He cannot do both.