Trump Completes U.S.
Trump Completes U.S.
The United States has formally completed its withdrawal from the World Health Organization, the Department of Health and Human Services said Thursday, finalizing a long-standing goal of President Donald Trump.
Trump attempted to leave the organization during his first term and issued formal notice through an executive order on the first day of his second term. Under U.S. law, the country was required to provide one year’s notice and settle outstanding financial obligations before withdrawal could take effect, CNN
The United States still owes the WHO roughly $260 million, though legal experts said the funds are unlikely to be paid and the organization has little ability to compel payment.
“As a matter of law, it is very clear that the United States cannot officially withdraw from WHO unless it pays its outstanding financial obligations,” said Dr. Lawrence Gostin, a global health law expert at Georgetown University. “But WHO has no power to force the U.S. to pay what it owes.”
Gostin said the WHO could attempt to block the withdrawal through a formal resolution but is unlikely to escalate tensions given the administration’s clear intent to leave.
HHS said Thursday that all U.S. government funding to the WHO has been terminated and that all American personnel and contractors assigned to or embedded with the organization have been recalled.
The agency said the United States has also ceased participation in WHO-sponsored committees, leadership bodies, governance structures, and technical working groups.
Administration officials said some limited cooperation could continue. Asked whether the U.S. would participate in an upcoming WHO-led meeting on next year’s influenza vaccine composition, officials said discussions are ongoing.
During a call with reporters, a senior administration official said the United States had not received sufficient value from its involvement with the organization.
“A promise made and a promise kept,” the official said, adding that the WHO “has acted contrary to the U.S. interest in protecting the American public.”
The official also noted that despite being the WHO’s largest financial contributor, the United States has never had an American serve as the organization’s director-general.
HHS cited the WHO’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic as a central reason for the withdrawal.
In a news release, the agency said the organization delayed declaring a global public health emergency and praised China’s response despite what the administration described as early underreporting, information suppression, and delays in confirming human-to-human transmission.
HHS also criticized the WHO for initially downplaying airborne transmission and asymptomatic spread of the virus.
“This action means our country’s health policies can no longer be constrained by unaccountable foreign bureaucrats,” a senior HHS official said.
Despite the withdrawal, administration officials said the United States will continue to play a leading role in global health.
Officials said the U.S. plans to work directly with individual countries, non-governmental organizations, and religious groups on infectious disease surveillance and data sharing.
That effort is expected to be led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Global Health Center.
“We’ve assessed all of the gaps and the potential gaps,” another senior administration official said. “We have plans in place.”
The administration said additional announcements are expected in the coming months.
Some public health experts warned that replacing WHO coordination with bilateral agreements would create gaps in global surveillance and response.
“It doesn’t allow the same level of partnership and surveillance as working with WHO,” said a former CDC official who requested anonymity.
The official noted the CDC operates in about 60 countries, but said that does not replace the global reach of the WHO.
Critics said the withdrawal could leave the United States and the world more vulnerable to emerging biological threats.
“The U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization is a shortsighted and misguided abandonment of our global health commitments,” said Dr. Ronald Nahass, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Challenge In Second Amendment Case
A split Supreme Court turned down a challenge to a state ban on assault weapons. Semiautomatic rifles, popular among gun owners, have also played a significant role in mass shootings.
The majority didn’t say why they turned down the case about guns like the AR-15. Three of the nine justices on the court, all of whom are conservative, openly disagreed, while a fourth said he wasn’t sure if such restrictions are constitutional.
Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch said they would have looked at the case, and Justice Clarence Thomas wrote separately to say that the law clearly violates the Second Amendment.
Thomas wrote, “I wouldn’t wait to decide if the government can ban the most popular rifle in America.” “That question is very important to tens of millions of law-abiding AR-15 owners across the country.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whom President Donald Trump appointed, agreed with the decision to throw out the case now, but he doesn’t think that such bans are constitutional and anticipates that the court will look at the issue “in the next term or two.”
The Maryland law was passed after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut in 2012, which killed 20 children and six adults. The shooter had an AR-15, which is a type of rifle that is also called an assault weapon.
Several states have laws that are similar, and Democrats in Congress have also supported the idea. The challengers said that people had a constitutional right to buy rifles like the AR-15, which most gun owners do legally.
The lawsuit comes as the Supreme Court is currently hearing another case that could have a huge impact on the Second Amendment.
On Monday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of United States v. Hemani. This case questions whether a federal law that makes it a crime for an illegal drug user to own a gun is constitutional.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear Hemani’s case after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit threw out his conviction last year because the law, as it applied to Hemani, who admitted to using marijuana a lot, violated the Second Amendment.
Hemani is the first case since the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen that has prompted the court to consider whether it is constitutional to arrest people for owning guns solely based on their membership in a certain group.
The court decided in 2024 that the defendant in United States v. Rahimi was dangerous because his ex-girlfriend had made accusations against him.
But in Hemani, the law says that anyone who uses drugs illegally can’t have a gun, no matter what their situation is. The main question seems to be: Can the government ban all illegal drug users from owning guns?
How does this categorical frame fit with the Bruen test, which says that every modern gun law must be based on a similar law from the time of the founding (or close to it)?
While the nation awaits the ruling, it appears that both the conservative and liberal justices were against the law’s broad definition of the category.
The justices appeared to concur that the law could charge and disarm an excessive number of individuals for unwarranted offenses.
Both sides were against the category’s size and kept saying they didn’t believe a law could cover so many things.
It seemed like too much to ask to take away the guns of all illegal drug users, from marijuana smokers to PCP users to people who used their spouse’s prescription drugs.
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A majority of the justices seemed to agree that a lot of illegal drug users were just too dangerous to have guns.
But after the argument on Monday morning, it was clear that both the left and right sides of the court did not agree that all illegal drug users, no matter what their situation was, lost their Second Amendment rights.
