GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — The United States has still not paid off its membership fee arrears at the World Health Organization, the WHO chief said Wednesday, with Washington’s intention to leave conditional on paying up.
The UN health agency’s director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he hoped the US would come up with the money they owe — a self-imposed condition for quitting the organization.
US President Donald Trump, on his first day back in office in January 2025, handed the WHO his country’s one-year withdrawal notice.
“In terms of the arrears from the US, the US withdrawal is conditioned with two things,” Tedros told a press conference with the UN correspondents’ association ACANU.
“One is notification one year in advance, which is actually met. And the second is paying the arrears, so we hope they will do that but we haven’t received anything yet.”
The US was the biggest contributor to the WHO budget.
Tedros said there were “no signals” indicating that Washington would come up with the cash.
But he added: “To be honest, it’s not about the money.”
“The issue is health security needs universality and the US, by withdrawing, makes itself unsafe and makes the rest of the world unsafe. So it’s lose-lose.”
“So our focus is not on the money. The focus is on helping the US to understand and reconsider.”
“Where there is a vacuum, the virus wins. It’s as simple as that.”