On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order initiating the United States’ withdrawal from the World Health Organization, the United Nation’s agency charged with supporting global health. Last week, he finalized that action, ending all funding, personnel support, and formal engagements.  

Trump’s action is hardly precipitous. In fact, when he indicated his desire to disengage from the WHO in 2020, he noted that his decision was largely driven by the organization’s profoundly poor performance in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent refusals to reform itself.

Based on the record, the president is making the right decision.  

Amidst the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, the WHO failed in its crucial mission. Following a comprehensive two-year investigation into the government’s response to the pandemic, including sworn testimony, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic concluded:

While WHO is supposed to support the entire world, during COVID-19 pandemic, it appeared to protect its relationship with the CCP (the Chinese Communist Party). The WHO was misinformed, denied access to China, and was used as cover for CCP’s reckless actions. At a time when the globe was turning to the WHO for leadership and advice, the WHO’s actions showed that it did not support all its members equally. What was seen was an organization that, rather than serving all humankind, became beholden to and entrapped in politics.

The Record. Look at the record. On Jan. 14, 2020, for example, the WHO told the world that COVID-19 was “not transmissible” from human to human. The WHO’s communication of this false information was based on what communist Chinese officials were telling it, and it naively trusted them.

In fact, one of the........

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