President Donald Trump’s decision to end U.S. membership in the World Health Organization revives a five-year-old grudge with the WHO’s leader. Trump has long charged that WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus covered up China’s responsibility for the Covid pandemic,

President Donald Trump announced Monday he is withdrawing the US from the World Health Organization, a significant move on his first day back in the White House cutting ties with the United Nations’ public health agency and drawing criticism from public health experts.

Public health experts say U.S. withdrawal from the W.H.O. would undermine the nation’s standing as a global health leader and make it harder to fight the next pandemic.

President Donald Trump said on Saturday he may consider rejoining the World Health Organization, days after ordering a U.S. exit from the global health agency over what he described as a mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic and other international health crises.

Public health experts say the United States’ departure could cripple the WHO’s operations or leave an opening for China to assume greater control over the agency.

The U.S. has traditionally been the most generous benefactor of the WHO. A Trump executive order to cut ties with the WHO could pose a threat to global public health.

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,