The Trump administration is planning to cut its membership dues to the World Health Organization, in a legally controversial move that will be challenged by Congress.
The US issued its formal notice of withdrawal from the WHO in July, after Donald Trump accused the body of being pro-China and of failing to contain the coronavirus pandemic. However, the withdrawal does not take effect until next July, and until then – according to a 72-year-old agreement with Congress – the US is obliged to maintain its financial contributions.
By the time of the withdrawal notice, the first tranche of $58m of its “assessed contributions” – national membership dues – had already been paid, leaving a second tranche ofabout $62m.
The deputy assistant secretary of state for international organisation affairs, Nerissa Cook, said on Wednesday those funds, as well as $18m owing from the previous year “will be reprogrammed to the UN to pay other assessments”. Cook said the details had to yet to be worked out, but made it clear the money would be diverted away from the WHO towards paying other UN dues.
The administration will also make limited voluntary contributions to the WHO in areas where there is no alternative. That includes a “one-time disbursement” of $68 million to WHO humanitarian health assistance in Libya and Syria and its efforts to eradicate polio, mostly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“These exceptions reflect the few cases in which WHO has the unique capabilities that an alternate partner could not replicate at this time,” said Alma Golden, assistant administrator for global health at the United States Agency for International Development.
Democrats in Congress have challenged the president’s right to reduce or divert funds from the WHO, saying it is a violation of the joint resolution of Congress that marked the agreement made with Congress at the time of US accession to the global health body in 1948.
“Our understanding of the law is that if the United States decides to withdraw, a year has to elapse before it takes effect, and during that period we have to pay what we owe. That means what we still owe for 2019, 2020, and for at least a portion of 2021,” Tim Rieser, foreign policy aide to Patrick Leahy, Democratic Senator from Vermont.
“Knowing this administration, they will interpret the law in a way that doesn’t require them to do what it says, and then we will have to argue with them,” Rieser said.
“Senator Leahy, like just about every public health expert in the world, believes this is a terribly shortsighted and supremely ill-timed decision, driven by the President’s attempt to blame others for his administration’s abysmal handling of this pandemic,” he added. “WHO made mistakes, and those need to be addressed. But it is reckless to withdraw from an organization that we need to combat not only this pandemic but countless other public health threats around the world.”
Lawrence Gostin, professor of global health law at Georgetown University said: “I think what [Trump] is doing is blatantly unlawful and also deeply detrimental to the health and security interests of the United States.”
Alexandra Phelan, adjunct professor in global and public health law and ethics at Georgetown University, said that according to the legal consensus, Trump “either has to fulfill the assessed contributions and financial commitments and then he is able to withdraw, or if he if he wants to divert or freeze any of the financial commitments the US has made to the WHO, then he cannot withdraw.”
The US is also expected to announce that over the next few months it will recall US health experts from the Department of Health and Human Services currently serving at the WHO headquarters in Geneva and its regional and country offices.
On Tuesday, the US made clear it would not be joining an international effort to develop a vaccine for Covid-19 because the WHO is helping lead that initiative, and rejected WHO concerns about US plans to distribute a vaccine before it had completed full trials.