Trump Administration Proposes Creating Rival Organization to WHO

After pulling out of the World Health Organization (WHO), the Trump administration is proposing spending $2 billion a year to replicate the global disease surveillance and outbreak functions the United States once helped build and accessed at a fraction of the cost, according to three administration officials briefed on the proposal.

The effort to build a U.S.-run alternative would re-create systems such as laboratories, data-sharing networks and rapid-response systems the U.S. abandoned when it announced its withdrawal from the WHO last year and dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal deliberations.

While President Donald Trump accused the WHO of demanding "unfairly onerous payments," the alternative his administration is considering carries a price tag about three times what the U.S. contributed annually to the U.N. health agency. The U.S. would build on bilateral agreements with countries and expand the presence of its health agencies to dozens of additional nations, the officials said.

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