After exiting the World Health Organization in January, the Trump administration is proposing to spend $2 billion annually on a U.S.-run replacement, The Washington Post reported Feb. 19.
The effort would replicate systems provided by the WHO, including laboratories, rapid-response systems and data-sharing networks, three administration officials briefed on the proposal told the Post.
“HHS is working with the White House in a deliberative, interagency process on the path forward for global health and foreign assistance that first and foremost protects Americans,” HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement shared with Becker’s on Feb. 19. HHS did not confirm the proposal.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January 2025 to withdraw the U.S. from the WHO effective Jan. 22, 2026, citing the global agency’s “mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic” and other global health crises. However, the administration has not met one exit requirement: paying outstanding dues. The U.S. does not plan to pay the $278 million it owes for the 2024-25 period, NPR reported Jan. 20.
The alternative under consideration would cost about three times what the U.S. paid to the WHO annually, according to the Post.
“This $2 billion in funding to HHS is to build the systems and capacities to do what the WHO did for us,” one official told the newspaper.
Public health experts said the replacement likely would not match the WHO’s reach. The global agency provides access not offered to the U.S., such as to China and Russia, which do not typically share health information directly with the U.S., Atul Gawande, MD, the assistant administrator for global health for the U.S. Agency for International Development from 2022 to 2025, told the Post.
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