WHO’s Annual Meeting Kicks Off With Budget Woes Thanks To President Trump

The World Health Organization just started its nine day meeting by admitting it’s strapped for cash.

8,000 suckers flew into Lake Geneva to hear how poor everyone is, just as the U.S. and other donors cut funding.

Looks like hard times on millionaire row.

Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is scrambling to respond to the shortfall.

Maybe he can flip Pokémon cards on ebay? It’s a jerk move but at least no one will die from it.

One of the neat things about President Trump first day back in office was that he confirmed we were leaving the WHO.

Awwww. pic.twitter.com/QBRyz2qSPi

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) May 19, 2025

Breitbart reports:

The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) began its annual nine-day meeting Monday on the shores of Lake Geneva, Switzerland, with upwards of eight thousand attendees flying in for the event from all around the world. The elites gathered as the United Nations subsidiary began crying poor and publicly doubting its ability to ever again meet crises like the coronavirus epidemic after U.S. funding cuts struck at the heart of its finances.

AP reports Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has been grappling with a response to the U.S. cuts as well as reduced outlays from other traditional Western donors who are favoring defense over humanitarian aid.

President Donald Trump confirmed the U.S. was exiting the agency on the first day of his return to office in January.

Matthew Kavanagh, the director of Georgetown University’s center for Global Health Policy and Politics, said other countries have used the “U.S. disruption” — the cut in aid — “as cover to do their maneuvering, with many countries in Europe reducing aid.”

“The WHO faces an existential crisis that goes well beyond a budget gap to the question of whether this sort of multilateralism can succeed in addressing global health in this new era of nationalism and misinformation,” he said, the AP reported.

It is also grappling with countries questioning the W.H.O. and the efficacy of its response to the coronavirus pandemic.

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In the run-up to the assembly, W.H.O. has been slashing cutting costs. Its management has presented a budget for the next two years at just under $4.3 billion, which is 22 percent less than originally planned — largely in response to Western funding cuts, the AP report notes.

NPR adds their two cents:

This week, representatives from the 194 countries of the World Health Organization — minus the U.S. — are gathering in Geneva to discuss and vote on policies that will shape global health in the years and decades to come. The topics will range from preparing for the next pandemic to preventing lung cancer by cutting air pollution.

So where’s the U.S.? On Inauguration Day, President Donald Trump announced plans to withdraw from the WHO, saying that the U.N. organization had “ripped” off the United States and asserting that it is controlled by China. For the first time since 1948, the U.S. — which provides about one-fifth of WHO’s $6.8 billion budget — will be absent from the annual World Health Assembly.

“It’s very sad that the U.S. is no longer within the group of countries who want to help make the world a better place,” said Barbara Stocking of Britain, the chair of the Panel for a Global Public Health Convention, an independent group focused on pandemic prevention.

Probably a coincidence that they have a statue of the god of destruction in their building.

"Dr." Tedros of the World Health Organization in a meeting with China at a table with a statue of Shiva, who happens to be the god of destruction

Think they might be trying to tell us something? pic.twitter.com/BBlzeYj0eW

— Vision4theBlind (@Vision4theBlind) January 31, 2025

For those who want to fall asleep, here’s a feed of their meeting:

WHO WATCH: 78th World Health Assembly Meeting, Continued https://t.co/fYJtWrwfTL

— Children’s Health Defense (@ChildrensHD) May 19, 2025