WASHINGTON — The United States has formally withdrawn from the World Health Organization, cutting ties with the UN body and depriving it of one of its largest financial contributors.

U.S. President Donald Trump initiated the withdrawal through an executive order signed a year ago, accusing the WHO of being overly aligned with China during the Covid-19 pandemic. The withdrawal has now taken full effect, U.S. officials said.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said the decision was based on what it described as the WHO’s mishandling of the pandemic, its failure to carry out reforms and what Washington sees as political influence exerted by member states.

In the aftermath of Covid-19, WHO member countries negotiated a global pandemic treaty aimed at improving prevention, preparedness and response to future health crises, including fairer sharing of vaccines and medicines. The treaty was agreed in April last year by all WHO members except the United States.

Washington has traditionally been among the WHO’s biggest donors but has not paid its assessed contributions for 2024 and 2025, leading to significant job losses at the agency. WHO legal advisers say the United States remains obligated to pay arrears estimated at $260 million (£193 million), a position the U.S. government has rejected.

U.S. officials said all government funding to the WHO has been terminated, American personnel and contractors have been withdrawn from the agency’s headquarters in Geneva and its offices worldwide, and hundreds of cooperative engagements with the WHO have been suspended or ended.

“The WHO tarnished and trashed everything that America has done for it,” U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a joint statement.