https://issuesinsights.com/2025/02/05/hed/
Americans have been largely pleased with President Donald Trump’s deluge of executive orders. But not all of them. Public support is weak for his order to withdraw the U.S. from the World Health Organization and the Paris climate treaty. This is curious. One is clearly a political organization, the other a useless and wasteful effort. The failure by a significant swath of our countrymen to recognize this is worrisome.
This is actually the second time Trump pulled the U.S. from the WHO. The first departure was in 2020. It pleased us then that no longer would this country “take part in its kleptocratic incompetence and its cozying up to dictators and tyrants, including its biggest influencer, China.” The WHO’s reckoning, we said at the time, “is long overdue.”
Of course Joe Biden put the country back under the WHO’s thumb on his first day in office in 2021, even though it was clear that leaving had hurt no none. Despite this, our I&I/TIPP poll found that only 38% of Americans agree, either strongly (22%) or somewhat (16%) with quitting the WHO.
Critics point out that at one time, when it followed its original mission, the WHO had value.
“Unfortunately, the WHO has expanded its mission over the years to areas that only tangentially relate to public health, such as issuing alcohol consumption and dietary guidelines,” says Cato Institute senior fellow Jeffrey A. Singer. “Such issues are more aptly defined as private health, i.e., matters that don’t cause harm to others.”
