The Donald Trump administration announced yesterday, Friday, that the US rejects the 2024 amendments adopted by World Health Organization (WHO) countries to fight pandemics, saying they are a violation of US sovereignty.

In 2024, WHO member countries adopted amendments to the International Health Regulations, a legally binding framework for dealing with public health emergencies, after highlighting the limits of what was in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

US President Donald Trump decided when he returned to power in January to withdraw the US from this UN agency.

US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy Jr and the country’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, noted in a statement that “these amendments are likely to interfere with our sovereign right to formulate our own health policy. We will put Americans first in all our actions, and we will not tolerate any international policy that violates Americans’ freedom of speech, privacy, or civil liberties, the statement added.

The amendments introduce the concept of a “pandemic emergency” and “greater solidarity and equality,” according to the WHO.

They were adopted after the agency failed last year to reach a more ambitious global agreement to tackle pandemics. In 2025, an agreement was finally reached, but without the US.

“We regret the US decision to reject the amendments,” WHO chief Tedros Andanom Gebrejesus noted in a statement posted on social media X.

He stressed that these amendments “are clear on the issue of sovereignty of member states” and added that the WHO “cannot decide on quarantines or similar measures.”

Washington, under the presidency of Joe Biden, had participated in the 2024 negotiations but had failed to reach consensus. The US was demanding more intellectual property rights protection for US vaccines.