World Health Organization:
The U.S. and Others Walk Away

Jun 9, 2025

This article is translated from the June 6 issue #2966 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the revolutionary workers group of that name active in France.

Trump declared on assuming office that the U.S. would withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO). The institution plans to cut its staffing costs by a fourth as a result.

WHO’s budget was only six billion dollars, a pittance compared to global health needs, although other agencies also address health issues. But U.S. funding at just over one billion represented around a fifth of WHO’s revenue. This paid for more than a quarter of polio eradication expenses and made significant contributions to health and nutrition services projects and the fight against vaccine-preventable diseases.

People in poor countries will pay dearly for this gesture by the U.S. But they will also pay because all the governments of other rich countries have also increasingly withdrawn funding. According to WHO officials, it is highly unlikely that European countries will try to make up for the loss of America’s contribution.

In fact, the Western countries which hoard a large part of the world’s health resources—especially the gigantic pharmaceutical companies—feel no responsibility for global health beyond a minimal token. Their participation in humanitarian projects has always depended on political calculations, in part to counterbalance the image of neocolonial powers plundering the wealth of poor countries. According to the director of the Geneva-based Institute for Global Health, “Rich countries believe they do not need the WHO.”

After the U.S. leaves, the country contributing the most to WHO funding will be ... China. The Chinese regime also obviously has its own political agenda in seeking to play a global role in health. But it can do so precisely because all the rich countries are washing their hands of the matter.