The modifications adopted in 2024 by the countries of World Health Organization (Which) to combat the pandemic He announced on Friday (18.07.2025) that the Donald Trump government was rejecting, stressing that they are a violation of US sovereignty.
In 2024, the member states of the World Health Organization adopted amendments to the International Health Regulation, a legally binding framework for the treatment of emergency public health, after the limits of the applicable during the Covid-19 pandemic.
US President Donald Trump decided when he returned to power in January to withdraw the US from the UN organization. However, according to the US Foreign Ministry, these amendments remain binding to the country.
US Secretary of Health Robert Kennedy Junior, known for his positions surrounded by skepticism on vaccines, and the country’s foreign minister, Mark Rubio, said in a statement issued that “these amendments are likely to obstruct our health”.
“We will first put Americans into all our actions, and we will not tolerate any international policy that violates the freedom of speech, privacy or individual freedoms of Americans,” the statement added.
The amendments introduce the concept of “pandemic emergency” and “greater solidarity and equality”, according to the WHO.
These were adopted after the organization failed last year to conclude a more ambitious global agreement to tackle pandemics. In 2025, an agreement was finally reached, but without the US.
“We are sorry for the US decision to reject the modifications,” his head of Tenos Adanom Gembeges said in a statement posted on social media.
He emphasized that these amendments “are clear on the issue of the sovereignty of the Member States” and added that who cannot decide on cartoon or similar measures.
Washington, chaired by Joe Biden, had participated in the negotiations in 2024, but had not achieved consensus. The US was worth more protection of intellectual property rights for US vaccines.
Rubio’s predecessor at the US Foreign Ministry, Anthony Blinken, had then welcomed the amendments, saying they were making progress.
“They also do not adequately deal with his weakness that in the face of political influence and censorship, especially on the part of China, during epidemics,” the two US ministers have rejected in a statement issued yesterday.