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Just before the July 19 deadline that would have bound the US to newly amended International Health Regulations (IHR) formulated by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Trump administration announced Friday that it had formally rejected the post-COVID pandemic agreement that critics say encroaches on national sovereignty, encourages censorship on public health matters as well as increased surveillance of citizens, and calls for onerous financial commitments.

As noted in a joint statement from the Department of Health and Human Services and the State Department, the amended IHR “would give the WHO the ability to order global lockdowns, travel restrictions, or any other measures it sees fit to respond to nebulous ‘potential public health risks.’”

The press release further noted that the regulations would have become binding if not rejected by July 19, regardless of the fact that the US withdrew from the WHO in January.

As reported by The Washington Stand, the WHO formally adopted the new IHR as part of a global pandemic agreement in May after three years of negotiations with member countries.

Under the Trump administration, the US did not participate in the adoption process, which was reportedly commandeered by 180 delegates from communist China.

The agreement stipulated that nations must contribute “20% of their real time production of safe, quality and effective vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics” to the WHO. It also called for imposing “social measures” during future pandemics including “physical distancing,” “mask-wearing,” and “contact tracing, isolation, and quarantine” — measures which notably failed to stop the spread of COVID during the 2020 pandemic.

The agreement further called on nations to “prevent misinformation, disinformation and stigmatisation” during pandemics.

WHO ‘Widely Discredited’

“The proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations open the door to the kind of narrative management, propaganda, and censorship that we saw during the COVID pandemic,” HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr remarked in announcing the US rejection of the agreement. “The United States can cooperate with other nations without jeopardising our civil liberties, without undermining our Constitution, and without ceding away America’s treasured sovereignty.”

“Terminology throughout the amendments to the 2024 International Health Regulations is vague and broad, risking WHO-coordinated international responses that focus on political issues like solidarity, rather than rapid and effective actions,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio added. “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.”

Members of Congress applauded the Trump administration’s move to extricate the US from the WHO regulations.

“The COVID-19 pandemic exposed how the incompetency and corruption at the WHO demands comprehensive reforms. Instead of addressing its disastrous public health policies during COVID, the WHO wants International Health Regulation amendments and a pandemic treaty to declare public health emergencies in member states, which could include failed draconian responses like business and school closures and vaccine mandates,” remarked Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis). “I fully support the Trump administration’s decision to reject the IHR amendments.”

Representative Chip Roy (R-Texas) concurred, stating, “The United States must never cede our sovereignty to any international entity or organisation. I applaud Secretary Kennedy and Secretary Rubio for rejecting the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) ill-advised International Health Regulations (IHR) amendments… The WHO, a widely discredited international organisation, lost any potential credibility during the COVID-19 pandemic, and we must ensure no future administration grants them any legitimacy or further power over the health of Americans.”

WHO’s ‘Assault on Our Sovereignty’

Foreign policy experts like Frank Gaffney, president of the Institute for the American Future, agree, saying that exiting the WHO regulations would mark an important reversal from the previous administration.

“[T]he Biden administration… was only too happy to [cooperated with] global governance advocates like the World Health Organisation, like the United Nations, like the World Economic Forum and associated multinational companies who have been driving this train that what we need is a new world order, one that is run by elites who are not accountable, who are not elected to rule us, but who will nonetheless have the authority [over us],” he observed during Thursday’s edition of “Washington Watch.”

Gaffney went on to detail how the pandemic agreement enables the WHO to “unilaterally declare [a pandemic] exists and then to dictate what nations have to… do to implement his guidelines for addressing that public health emergency of international concern. So that’s one way you would see a direct affront to our sovereignty… [A]nother is a sort of surveillance state quality. They want to create digital IDs for every man, woman, and child on the planet — they want everybody in the name of having the ability to monitor their health conditions, to provide intensive personal details about them.”

“[T]hese international health regulations [are an] assault on our sovereignty and personal freedoms,” Gaffney concluded.

Video Transcript of Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s IHR Announcement

Hello everyone, this is your HHS Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. I want to speak to you today about a controversial issue that could directly impact you and your family during a global health emergency.

Last year, the World Health Organization’s governing body made some far-reaching amendments to its International Health Regulations—otherwise known as the “IHR regulations.” These regulations establish the legal framework that gives countries rights and responsibilities for managing public health events with global impact.

The deadline to reject these amendments is next week—and we are rejecting them. I would like to explain to you why.

The first reason is national sovereignty. Nations that accept the new regulations are signing over their power in health emergencies to an unelected international organization that could order lockdowns, travel restrictions, or any other measures it sees fit. In fact, it doesn’t even need to declare an emergency—“potential public health risks” are enough for it to initiate action.

If we’re going to give the WHO that much power, we should at least invite a thorough public debate, especially since the agreement isn’t an official treaty and bypasses the U.S. Senate, which plays a key role in ensuring major international commitments receive proper democratic oversight.

To make matters worse, the new regulations employ extremely broad language that gives the WHO unprecedented power. They require countries to establish systems of “risk communication” so that the WHO can implement unified public messaging globally. That opens the door to the kind of narrative management, propaganda, and censorship that we saw during the COVID pandemic. We don’t want to see that kind of system institutionalized even further.

The agreement also contains provisions about global systems of health IDs, vaccine passports, and a centralized medical database. It lays the groundwork for global medical surveillance of every human being.

Maybe if the WHO were an infallible authority untainted by industry influence, we would consider accepting the new regulations. Unfortunately, the COVID pandemic demonstrated otherwise.

During COVID, the WHO failed to enforce the International Health Regulations that were already in place for generations. China withheld critical information about the outbreak for at least a month—and faced no real consequences or criticisms from the WHO. As the 2024 Congressional Oversight Report put it: “The WHO was misinformed, denied access to China, and used as a cover for the Chinese Communist Party’s reckless action.”

These and other atrocities make one thing clear: we must strengthen national and local autonomy to hold global organizations in check and to restore a real balance of power.

Underneath all the bureaucratic language, what’s at stake here is a vision for our future. Are we going to be subjects to a technocratic control system that uses “health risks” and “pandemic preparedness” as a Trojan Horse to curtail basic democratic freedoms? Do we want a future where every person, every movement, every transaction, and every human body is under surveillance at all times?

Now, I don’t want to be too alarmist. The new regulations aren’t in themselves medical totalitarianism. In fact, they were perhaps written with good intentions. But they are definitely a step in the wrong direction. That’s why we are rejecting the amendments, not only on behalf of our own citizens, but the whole world.

After all, America could simply ignore the WHO. But few other countries are as powerful as the United States. Even though many of these amendments are phrased to be non-binding, as a practical matter, it’s hard for many countries to resist them, especially when they are dependent on WHO funding and its partnerships.

That’s why we’re taking leadership to stop an agreement that’s bad for the entire world.

I want to be clear that in rejecting these amendments, President Trump and I are not rejecting international cooperation. We can cooperate with other nations without jeopardizing our civil liberties, without undermining our Constitution, and without ceding away America’s treasured sovereignty.

That’s my commitment to you. That’s President Trump’s commitment to you.

Thank you, and God bless you all, and God bless our country.

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Republished with thanks to The Washington Stand. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.