Days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization due to concerns about China’s outsized role, the global organization’s top leaders began fundraising on social media. did.

Maria van Kerkhove, infectious disease epidemiologist who served as WHO’s technical lead on the Covid-19 pandemic; Posted on x Thursday morning asking for donations to the Who Foundation.

As of Friday afternoon, only about $23,000 had been raised toward the $1 billion goal.

Please consider donating @who via @whofoundation– 1 dollar, 1 world#proudtobewhohttps://t.co/tckc41ef3m

– Maria Van Kerhove (@mvankerkhove) January 23, 2025

This is a small percentage of the $766 million shortfall in expected contributions from the United States in the 2024-2025 biennium budget period, and 18% of the organization’s revenue.

Trump’s presidential order – Signed hours after inauguration – begins the one-year notice period designated by joint resolution Adopted by Congress in 1948, it established U.S. membership in the WHO. (Related: Trump was busy in his first 12 hours in office — here were his first big moves)

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told staff on Thursday that the organization would implement “cost reductions and efficiencies”, including freezing new recruitment “in all but the most critical areas” and halting capital investment. news report.

The programs most dependent on U.S. voluntary contributions include HIV, AIDS, and other STIs (75% of global voluntary contributions) and tuberculosis (75% of global voluntary contributions), according to a PowerPoint provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation. (61% of voluntary contributions).

The executive order also remembers American staff and contractors.

According to international treaties, the United States must meet its financial obligations to WHO for the fiscal year prior to its withdrawal. Congressional Research Service Under the Treaty on the Vienna Convention, remaining financial obligations must be paid before withdrawing from the treaty, but it was found unclear who could reliably enforce the obligated payments.

The new executive order states that the U.S. withdrawal was motivated by “unwarranted onerous payments from the United States, not far removed from the assessed payments of other countries,” namely payments by China.

who receives rated (Required) Contributions from member states scaled by population and GDP, and voluntary contributions from both private organizations and member states. Currently, the United States and China pay equivalent amounts of assessed contributions. China will pay an assessed contribution of $181 million in 2024 and 2025, and the United States will pay $264 million. However, in voluntary contributions, China contributes almost nothing. It is expected to pay just $2.5 million in 2024 and 2025. Prior to the executive order, the United States was expected to make a total voluntary contribution of $442 million.

The WHO had expected the US to pay 2024 assessment contributions totaling $130 million this month, but has so far not received any.

China is the second largest economy in the world, but remains officially classified As a developing country by the United Nations. Still, as China’s economy grows, China’s assessed WHO payments have increased from China’s $53 million over a two-year budget period a decade ago.

The executive order also spotlights the WHO’s deference to Beijing authorities for seeking access to Wuhan’s tightly controlled hospitals and laboratories during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The United States found itself withdrawing from the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2020 due to the misorganization of the covid-19 pandemic originating from Wuhan, China,” the order states.

Wuhan’s first mission to the WHO in February 2020 praised China’s lockdown as “perhaps the most ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort”. Chinese propaganda. a second mission In January and February 2021, Uhan brought reports and press conferences to clarify the origins of the pandemic, rejecting the hypothesis that the pandemic arose from a lab accident as “extremely unlikely.” Ta. reportedly That was the only way to lead investigator Peter Ben Ebarek to include that possibility in the mission’s conclusion.

WHO has never received the complete data needed to assess the origins of the pandemic.

“Who has repeatedly asked China to share all the information available on the earliest cases, the animals sold in the Wuhan market, the labs handling Coronaviros, etc., but has not received this information? hmm,” Van Kerkhob wrote. science January 16th.

Still, Van Kerkhove emphasized that “it is essential for the country… not to assign responsibility.”

Van Kerkov’s confirmation that early case data is incomplete challenges claims made by Western virologists in 2022. science – This early case data provided to the WHO by Beijing authorities radiates from the Hoan Nan Food Wholesale Market like a bull’s eye and clearly establishes it as the origin of the pandemic.

Some public health experts have warned that removing the United States from the WHO could reduce access to critical data on new outbreaks.

Earlier this month, who Member States have been notified An outbreak of Marburg virus is suspected in the United Republic of Tanzania.

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