The United States’ withdrawal from the Paris climate accords and World Health Organization opens a power vacuum for adversaries like China to fill.

The World Health Organization is shaped by its members: 194 countries that set health priorities and make agreements about how to share critical data, treatments, and vaccines during international emergencies.

"The bottom line is that withdrawing from the WHO makes Americans and the world less safe," says Dr. Tom Frieden, president and CEO of the nonprofit health organization Resolve to Save Lives and former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

As of President Donald Trump’s first day back in office Monday, the United States is leaving the World Health Organization. Some local experts think such a move might leave Spokane and the United States unprepared for the next pandemic.

U.S. President Donald Trump has used one of the flurry of executive actions that he issued on his first day back in the White House to begin the process of withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization for the second time in less than five years.

WHO’s constitution, drafted in New York, doesn’t have a clear exit method for member states. A joint resolution by Congress in 1948 outlined that the U.S. can withdraw with one year's notice. This is contingent, however, on ensuring that its financial obligations to WHO “shall be met in full for the organization’s current fiscal year.”

Trump has long charged that WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus covered up China’s responsibility for the Covid pandemic, and also aided Democrats who called Trump’s own move to shut the border to Chinese travelers racist.

As part of a rash of executive orders completed on his first day back in the White House, President Donald Trump began the nation’s exit from the World Health Organization. Here, we explain how the withdrawal would work and what it would mean,

The Trump administration has ordered a three-month pause on almost all foreign development assistance pending a review to see what fits in with the president's "America First" policy. Aid groups and human rights watchdogs warn that the freeze will put countless lives around the world at risk.

During his 2024 campaign, he vowed to rule on "Day One" as a "dictator," and promised the "most extraordinary first 100 days of any presidency in American history." He would launch a “shock and awe” campaign to enforce his will and remake American society and government in the far-right MAGA movement's desired image.

Polio, a disease that can cause lifelong paralysis, has been eliminated from the U.S. Experts fear a resurgence if lifesaving vaccines are revoked under the new administration