If you thought that this would be one of those break-ups where the breaker-upperer was going to say something nice like “It’s me, not you,” then you were sadly mistaken. On January 22, the Trump administration officially pulled the U.S. out of the World Health Organization and accompanied that withdrawal with some parting shots against the WHO—effectively saying it’s you, WHO, not us.
For example, the Trump administration has claimed that it is pulling the U.S. out of the United Nation’s specialized agency for global health due to, “WHO failures during the COVID-19 pandemic,” including “obstructing the timely and accurate sharing of critical information” and that the WHO “concealed those failures.” Yeah, that’s not exactly a we’ve-had-some-great-times type of statement that you might see in a more cordial, civil break-up. It is consistent, though, with the rhetoric against the WHO that has come out of the Trump administration ever since Donald Trump became U.S. President again in January 2025 and soon thereafter signed an Executive Order that would initiate the U.S. officially severing ties with the WHO in a year’s time, which is how long it takes for a country to break its membership.
The WHO meanwhile has refrained from criticizing the Trump administration’s response—or perhaps lack of response—to the COVID-19 pandemic back in 2020, which didn’t exactly get the all thumps up from scientists and public health experts around the U.S. back then. Instead, the WHO has been trying to convince the U.S. to reconsider its pull out decision. But now that the U.S. is officially out of the WHO, the WHO has been clapping back more against claims being made by the Trump administration. In an official statement, the WHO asserted that “Throughout the pandemic, WHO acted quickly, shared all information it had rapidly and transparently with the world, and advised Member States on the basis of the best available evidence.”
WHO Director General Responds To Claims By U.S. Secretary of HHS
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, the director-general of the WHO since 2017, took to X to essentially give various Trump administration claims a big “X,” posting, “Unfortunately, the reasons cited for the US decision to withdraw from WHO are untrue. The notification of withdrawal makes both the US and the world less safe,” as you can see here:
The WHO director general also responded on X to a post by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, stating, “This
@HHSGov statement concerning @WHO contains inaccurate information,” as you can see here:
That Kennedy, Jr., statement came in an X post from the HHS Secretary that had said, “The United States has formally withdrawn from the World Health Organization. We are reclaiming our independence, protecting American sovereignty, and putting U.S. public health policy back in the hands of the American people.” The Kennedy, Jr., post also featured a video in which the Secretary of HHS made a bunch of broad negative claims about the WHO without providing much in terms of specifics or specific evidence backing these claims.
For example, Kennedy, Jr., seemed to imply that the WHO forced the U.S. to comply with certain policies during the COVID-19 pandemic when the WHO in actuality really doesn’t have such power. Therefore, it wasn’t too surprising that Ghebreyesus responded on X, “While WHO recommended the use of masks, physical distancing and vaccines, WHO did not recommend governments to mandate the use of masks or vaccines and never recommended lockdowns.”
The WHO director general continued with, “WHO supported sovereign governments with technical advice and guidance that was developed on the basis of evolving evidence on #COVID19 for them to make policy decisions in the best interests of their citizens. Each government made their own decisions, based on their needs and circumstances.” In other words, WHO is saying that the Trump administration needs to take responsibility for how the Trump administration handled the pandemic in the U.S. in 2020.
WHO COVID-19 Technical Lead Responds To U.S. Deputy Secretary of HHS Claims
Meanwhile, Jim O’Neill, the deputy secretary of HHS and current acting director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since August 2025, joined the X’ing of WHO mix when he posted on Thursday, “Today the United States withdrew from the so-called World Health Organization” on X:
So-called World Health Organization? Ouch. Imagine saying something like, “Today, I broke up with my so-called significant other.” O’Neill’s post went on to say, “WHO ignored early COVID warnings from Taiwan in 2019 by pretending Taiwan did not exist. It ignored rigorous science and promoted lockdowns.” What O’Neill, who was a hedge fund manager and a venture capitalist before joining the Trump administration part deux, posted then concluded with, “The United States will continue international coordination on infectious disease without the Eurocrats in Geneva.” You could call that a piece of “crat” claim about those working at WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
Maria Van Kerkhove, PhD, an infectious disease epidemiologist who has been serving as the technical lead for the COVID-19 response and the Emerging Diseases and Zoonoses Unit Head at the WHO, then responded with basically the opposite of that 1983 Spandau Ballet song, calling O’Neill’s statement, “All untrue” in the following response post on X:
As you can see, Van Kerkhove added, “I know firsthand as #COVID19 technical lead: @WHO detected the Wuhan, China signal on 31 Dec 2019. Taiwan didn’t warn us: they asked for information the same day. We have not ignored Taiwan, we don’t ignore science and WHO never recommended lockdowns.”
Blaming WHO Overlooks U.S. Failures In Responding To COVID-19
It is important to remember what actually happened in 2020 when the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 began spreading around different parts of the world. The Trump administration initially discounted the seriousness of this threat through a good part of January and February 2020. But then once it was clear that the virus was spreading in an uncontrolled manner in the U.S., there was a quick shift in this country to closing schools and workplaces to slow the spread, “flatten the curve” and allow the U.S. time to regroup to come up with an actual response.
After that happened in March 2020, Trump in subsequent months repeatedly claimed that the U.S. was “rounding the corner” when it came to the COVID-19 pandemic, when the U.S. really wasn’t. He also called the SARS-CoV-2 things like the “kung-flu virus” and during a memorable press conference wondered whether injecting bleach might help with COVID-19. All along the way, the U.S. never set up an adequate testing strategy and surveillance system to track the spread of the virus and had to rely on a COVID-19 case counter set up by a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University. Yep, throughout 2020, the Trump administration made decisions about COVID-19 that ended up affecting millions upon millions of Americans.
Withdrawal From WHO Can End Up Adversely Affecting the U.S.
What’s also going to affect millions upon millions of Americans is the Trump administration’s decision to sever ties with the WHO. This feud between the Trump administration and the WHO isn’t like one of those break-up where there are no kids or other family members involved. “The U.S. withdraw from their WHO is a big blow to global public health and public health in general,” lamented Kelly Henning, MD, the Public Health Program Lead for Bloomberg Philanthropies, “It’s particularly concerning that the U.S. will really miss out on the dialogue, coordination and collaboration that the WHO brings. It’s a worrying moment for that reason.”
Yet, this decision was never put forth to the scientists or other citizens of the U.S. for a popular vote or even to the U.S. Congress, which presumably is supposed to represent the interests of all Americans. No, it’s one of those decisions made by a few that will end up affecting a lot of different things and people. Henning added, “I think it’s important to understand that, there’s a long-standing relationship between WHO, and the U.S., including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Health and Human Services, Food and Drug Administration and other entities that comes from a place of collaboration and joint work to improve health of the citizens of the world, including US citizens.” In other words, this could have a lot of complex and significant ramifications and reverberations.
She gave as an example “outbreaks, global health security, where the WHO is likely to hear of new pathogens or emerging pathogens, bacteria, viruses, whatever, before others do, and share that information with their members and come up with strategies together. And if we don’t receive that information, it will be very hard to react in a timely manner and protect American health.” Looks like the hindsight of 2020 isn’t exactly 20/20.
In the video that he posted on X, Kennedy, Jr. claimed that the U.S. will be able to set up a global infectious disease surveillance system by itself. If you are wondering about the chances of this happening, though, keep in mind that the U.S. was never able to set up an adequate COVID-19 surveillance system for even within its own borders. Lacking an adequate surveillance system for emerging infectious disease threats could lead the U.S. to repeat 2020 again at any moment because who knows when the next pandemic threat might emerge. And the trouble is going forward the U.S. may not even know what WHO knows.