Washington, Jan 21: US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order beginning the process of withdrawing America from the World Health Organisation, the second time in less than five years that the US has ordered to withdraw from the world body.It was among dozens of executive actions he signed after being sworn in on Monday for a second term, on issues ranging from immigration to foreign policy to climate change.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) came under intense criticism from Trump in 2020 for its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which grew into a worldwide health crisis during the final year of his first term.
“That’s a big one,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office of the White House when an aid presented to him an executive order on this to be signed by him.
“We paid USD 500 million to World Health when I was here, and I terminated it. China, with 1.4 billion people, has 350 dependents… nobody knows what we have because so many people came in illegally. But let’s say we have 325 (million people). They (China) had 1.4 billion people. They were paying USD39 million. We were paying USD500 million. It seemed a little unfair to me,” he said.