The United States has withdrawn from reforms introduced by the World Health Organisation (WHO) last year to enhance the global response to pandemics, part of a broader push by Washington against international regulations.
The administration of President Donald Trump formally rejected on Friday the 2024 amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) that were put in place in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F Kennedy announced the move in a joint statement, saying that it aims to “prevent international bureaucrats from shaping US domestic policies”.
The legally binding amendments expanded the regulations to improve the international response to a future pandemic.
They included the adoption of a clear definition of what constitutes a pandemic emergency and how it can be triggered, as well as efforts to improve information-sharing between countries across the world and WHO.
The amendments also called for allowing poorer nations access to medical products to “equitably address the needs and priorities of developing countries”.
“Terminology throughout the 2024 amendments is vague and broad, risking WHO-coordinated international responses that focus on political issues like solidarity, rather than rapid and effective actions,” Rubio and Kennedy said in their statements.
Lockdowns and vaccine mandates were a contentious political issue in the US during the pandemic, with right-wing activists close to Trump leading the charge in rejecting the measures.
At the same time, US conservatives have long been suspicious of multilateral institutions, viewing international rules as an infringement on the US’s sovereignty.
But advocates of global health regulations argue that pandemics do not stop at borders, and therefore must be confronted with a collaborative, international effort.
Shortly after taking office earlier this year, Trump officially announced that the US would pull out of WHO altogether by January 2026.
On Friday, Kennedy and Rubio said the amendments “compel countries to adopt digital health documents”.
“Our Agencies have been and will continue to be clear: we will put Americans first in all our actions and we will not tolerate international policies that infringe on Americans’ speech, privacy, or personal liberties,” the officials said.
“These amendments risk unwarranted interference with our national sovereign right to make health policy.”
While the reforms require WHO to develop and improve a database for digital health certificates that can be accessed internationally, participants would voluntarily submit information to the documents.
During the pandemic, most countries, including the US during Trump’s first term, required travellers to show negative COVID tests.
The US was absent in May when WHO adopted a separate agreement to enhance pandemic preparedness.
COVID, which caused flu-like symptoms and started to spread early in 2020, killed nearly 70 million people across the globe and brought the world to a halt for long stretches of time.
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