U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told the World Health Assembly (WHA) he is calling for a “reboot” of a global health system that will mirror what the Trump administration is implementing through its Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement in the US.
In a video message Tuesday to world health ministers gathered in Geneva, Switzerland, Kennedy reviewed the reason President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the World Health Organization (WHO), the health agency of the United Nations (UN), via an executive order on the first day of his new term.
Like many legacy institutions, the WHO has become mired in bureaucratic bloat, entrenched paradigms, conflicts of interest, and international power politics. While the United States has provided the lion’s share of the organization’s funding historically, other countries such as… pic.twitter.com/VvWbVBkb6M
— Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) May 20, 2025
“Like many legacy institutions, the WHO has become mired in bureaucratic bloat, entrenched paradigms, conflicts of interest and international power politics,” Kennedy asserted. “While the United States has provided the lion’s share of the organization’s funding, historically, other countries, such as China have exerted undue influence over its operations in ways that serve their own interests and not particularly the interests of the global public.”
He also observed that, during the COVID pandemic, the WHO succumbed to pressure from China to suppress reports “of human-to-human transmission” of the virus “and then worked with China to promote the fiction that COVID originated from bats or pangolins rather than from a Chinese government sponsored research at a biolab in Wuhan.”
“Not only has the WHO capitulated to political pressure from China,” Kennedy argued, “it’s also failed to maintain an organization characterized by transparency and fair governance by and for its member states.”
“The WHO often acts like it has forgotten that its members must remain accountable to their own citizens and not to transnational or corporate interests,” he added.
Kennedy continued that, even though he believes most of those who work for the WHO have good intentions, too often “the WHO’s priorities have increasingly reflected the biases and interests of corporate medicine; too often it has allowed political agendas like pushing harmful gender ideology to hijack its core mission; and too often, it has become the tool of politics and turned its back on promoting health and health security.”
Despite the US’ withdrawal from the WHO, President Trump and his administration remain invested in global cooperation on the issue of health, according to Kennedy.
Nevertheless, even with exposure of the corruption behind COVID pandemic policies, the WHO “has doubled down with the pandemic agreement, which will lock in all of the dysfunctions of the WHO pandemic response,” he warned.
“We’re not going to participate in that,” Kennedy asserted. “We need to reboot the whole system, as we are doing in the United States.”
We’ve spent trillions trying to fix our health system—and outcomes keep getting worse.
— Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) May 14, 2025
More money isn’t the solution. Smarter policy, less waste, and honest leadership is how we Make America Healthy Again. pic.twitter.com/A0UzbLarsQ
In explaining the Trump HHS’ MAHA agenda, Kennedy said the US will still “focus on infectious disease and pandemic preparedness” but shift its priorities “to focus on chronic diseases, which are prevalent in the United States” and “sickening our people and bankrupting our healthcare system.”
“We’re going to make healthcare in the United States serve the needs of the public, instead of industry profit-taking,” by “removing food dyes and other harmful additives from our food supply,” he said. “We’re investigating the causes of autism and other chronic diseases. We’re seeking to reduce consumption of ultra-processed foods, and we’re going to support lifestyle changes that will bolster the immune systems and transform the health of our people.”
Kennedy said the changes the US is making amount to a “systemic overhaul,” adding that the Trump administration would like to “see a similar reordering of priorities on the global stage, especially considering the fact that through the leadership of the United States and funding from our country, over the past 25 years, millions of global citizens have seen a reduction in premature death due to HIV, TB and malaria.”
The US secretary urged his counterparts in other nations and the WHO “to take our withdrawal from the organization as a wake-up call.”
“It isn’t that President Trump and I have lost interest in international cooperation, not at all,” he said. “We just want it to happen in a way that’s fair and efficient and transparent for all the member states.”
Kennedy also noted the Trump administration has already reached out to other “like-minded countries,” urging others to join them.
“We want a free international health cooperation from the straitjacket of political interference by corrupting influences of the pharmaceutical companies, of adversarial nations and their NGO proxies,” he concluded. “I would like to take this opportunity to invite my fellow health ministers around the world into a new era of cooperation.”