The United States will leave the World Health Organization, President Donald Trump said on Monday, saying the global health agency had mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic and other international health crises.

The U.S. has traditionally been the most generous benefactor of the WHO. A Trump executive order to cut ties with the WHO could pose a threat to global public health.

WHO’s constitution, drafted in New York, doesn’t have a clear exit method for member states. A joint resolution by Congress in 1948 outlined that the U.S. can withdraw with one year's notice. This is contingent, however, on ensuring that its financial obligations to WHO “shall be met in full for the organization’s current fiscal year.”

President Donald Trump announced Monday he is withdrawing the US from the World Health Organization, a significant move on his first day back in the White House cutting ties with the United Nations’ public health agency and drawing criticism from public health experts.

President Trump has used one of the flurry of executive actions that he issued on his first day back in the White House to begin the process of withdrawing the US from the World Health Organization for the second time in less than five years.

Public health experts say U.S. withdrawal from the W.H.O. would undermine the nation’s standing as a global health leader and make it harder to fight the next pandemic.

Trump has signed an executive order beginning the process of withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization, the global agency that came into the spotlight at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to begin the process of withdrawing the US from the World Health Organization (WHO).