California has become the first state to break from the Trump administration and realign with the World Health Organization, joining its Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network independently.
Following the United States’s official departure from the global public health organization, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) continued to mark his gubernatorial administration as a foil of President Donald Trump’s policies by re-joining the WHO network focused on global health emergencies.
Newsom, who has positioned himself as the antithesis of Trump at the World Economic Forum this week, kick-started the process of realigning the WHO by meeting with the organization’s Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in Davos. The Golden State governor called Trump’s Thursday withdrawal from the WHO a “reckless decision” in a statement.
“California will not bear witness to the chaos this decision will bring. We will continue to foster partnerships across the globe and remain at the forefront of public health preparedness, including through our membership as the only state in WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network,” Newsom said.
Trump signed a day-one executive order on Jan. 20, 2025, announcing the United States’s withdrawal from the WHO and directing Secretary of State Marco Rubio to notify the international agency of the U.S.’s withdrawal. Trump’s action was in line with the WHO’s required one-year grace period before a nation’s formal withdrawal, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
One year ago, Trump pointed to the “unfairly onerous payments” the international agency required of the United States as part of its membership, writing in the executive order that they were “far out of proportion with other countries’ assessed payments.” After the United States’s announced departure, the WHO took to its books to reduce its expenditures.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. expanded on this on Thursday, saying the U.S pulled out of the organization because it “drifted far from its founding mission,” and it became “mired in bureaucracy, in conflicts of interest and in international power politics.” The administration’s also pointed to the WHO’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We made this decision to reclaim our independence, to protect American sovereignty, and to free our public health policy from a system that no longer serves the American people,” Kennedy said.
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This is not the first time that Newsom has publicly governed California at odds with the Trump administration’s public health policies. In September, Newsom joined with the governors of several other blue states to form the West Coast Health Alliance in defiance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine guidelines under Kennedy.
Pundits have seen the California governor as a leading figure in the Democratic Party with 2028 presidential ambitions, as Newsom bolsters his stance as a counterweight to the current White House.
