Trump signs executive order withdrawing from the World Health Organization
reuters.com
reuters.com
Im interested to see how other world leaders respond. Clearly, the US is withdrawing from international commitments, but other countries certainly realize the benefits of having these organizations. I am hopeful that other nations step up to fill the gap.
Perhaps we are witnessing the unraveling of the Informal Empire in real time. Historic moment!
> House Passes Bill to Impose Sanctions on I.C.C. Officials for Israeli Prosecutions
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/09/us/politics/icc-sanctions...
Oh please. Biden has dementia.
A single person couldn't possibly have the bandwidth to be able to direct government, especially someone over the age of 70.
Do you really think Trump or Biden are sitting down and drafting executive orders themselves? Do you even think they came up with their campaigns themselves?
There are organizations behind these things, composed of partisan ideologues. That is how you get the bullshit in the last administration and the bullshit in this administration.
The Biden administration was composed of way more career oriented individuals in the right place than this administration. You have to be lying to yourself (or believing others who are lying to you) to think otherwise.
At some point, you need to fire your under-performing partners.
The US state of healthcare is terrible, but weirdly it also means retirees don't live long as an unintended consequence. This juices up the economy.
Which N95 mask manufacturers should we should be buying stock in? (I’d say “vaccine manufacturers”, but lolz.)
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/27/republican-fundrais...
Some choice quotes:
> Asked how he’d managed to procure such equipment when there are shortages in hospitals across the country, Gula said, “I have relationships with a lot of people.”
> Thomas declined to specify how he and Gula had managed to obtain masks that have become so rare that some hospitals have resorted to reusing them or having health care workers tie bandannas or scarfs around their faces. “It’s just relationship-based,” he said. “I can’t say anything else.”
> “I don’t want to overstate, but we probably represent the largest global supply chain for Covid-19 supplies right now,” he said. “We are getting ready to fill 100 million-unit mask orders.”
This last one is the kicker. This guy, who works with/for the Republican party, is able to set up shop in TWO WEEKS, "the largest global supply chain", "based off of relationships", and alarm bells aren't ringing?
I would love for someone to buy masks from Blue Flame, and check lot numbers / serial numbers on those supplies, and see who the original intended recipients were.
There are some people in tech who are inventing new algorithms, proving new theorems, developing new frameworks and moving technology further.
There are the "people in tech" who are entrepreneurs. To make money, they rely on tech, sure. But their philosophy is not inherently different from an entrepreneur who is in some other industry.
There is definitely some overlap between the two sets, for sure. But we cant draw the same conclusion about both of these sets of people
The march to this point is the use of capitalism to drive out socialism to implement racism. Its just now that the ends meet the justified means.
I think the only thing that'll end up shaking people awake is when said oligarchs finally get their way and crash the economy in a way that everyone feels. Because as rich as they are, we're ruled by the dumbest oligarchs alive.
https://www.businessinsider.com/y-combinator-paul-graham-say...
Trump supporters, like myself, think it’s smart not to reduce our nation’s sovereignty by kowtowing to the WHO. We as a nation can make appropriate health decisions.
But the world needs some way to cooperate, especially in matters of public health which do not care about national borders. Casually throwing that away for short term political theatre is so painfully stupid.
Also, no one kowtows to the WHO and no one gives up national sovereignty over their own health decisions. What led you to believe this?
There’s nothing the US needs to do in the area of health that it needs to do within the context of the WHO.
A population like that wants to help each other, not outdo each other, not compete with each other over who is more divisive, and so on.
social engineering usually amplifies what already exists
Even the true Blue democrats are jumping ship. What does that tell you?
Who are all these true-blue Democrats that are now MAGA?
84% of non-religious white college grads voted for Harris[1]. What this tells me is that this presidency is simply the poorly educated and the believers in the supernatural getting their turn at bat. Oh well, I'll benefit more from the inevitable tax cut for the rich than they will.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/exit-polls/national-result...
What are you saying? That the smart, white people voted for Democrats and clearly they always chose correctly?
Tech bros are not immune to populism
they're just chasing the money, and to hell with the rest
more egregiously, he tried to have the results of an election illegally overturned, incited the storming of the Capitol (and threats on elected officials), and today pardoned all those who did so (so obviously he was on their side; just think for a moment how that is going to embolden them)
we can argue about the merits of D vs R policies, but Trump is an affront to our democracy; shame on him and shame on all those who enable him
(Looking at the WHO's largest voluntary contributors [2], I could see the UK, Australia and France withdrawing soon, too.)
[1] https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/fact-sheet/the-u-s-...
Unless they decide to step up their funding as a soft power play.
This is a better page for viewing the WHO's sources of funding, at least for 2022-23[0][1]. There are three separate categories of voluntary funding and only 6.6% of funds come from Core Voluntary Contributions as displayed in your graph.
Starmer is many things wrong but one thing he won't do is renegade on international treaties and agreements.
You're right, I brainfarted and mixed up the coming political shifts in Canada and the UK.
The WHO being outside politics is good, it means it can focus on health/science and not worry about appealing to electorates.
I think Trump has a point though regarding China's contributions, China isn't a poor country but the WHO doesn't really have any way of forcing it to pay more.
Mpox has now mutated and is rapidly spreading and killing children and the wider population, as well as gay men.
If they told the truth we might have been able to stop it's spread through targeted education and have stopped it mutating. They also might not be considered a conspiracy organization, which with Mpox they truthful were.
It's disappointing Trump has done this, but expected given the way the insane Left destroys everything it touches.
Look at the HN comments here and on all the executive orders. Low IQed people spurting out emotions the media tells them to feel. This is why many people chose Trump.
Just go to your doctor and ask to get vaccinated.
This isn't actually a new thing. Aid has always begged the question: is the aid blind, or is the aid seen as an arm of foreign policy? Agencies like the world bank definitely put requirements on recipient of financial aid, like liberalising markets, and removing labor laws favouring unionisation.
"treat us like dirt" is hyperbole. I get that the money is not received with thanks, and I get that the agencies don't reflect U.S. culture or goals.
So I guess I agree with you a lot. The point of difference is how much it matters. You clearly think the principle goal should be the U.S. foreign policy outcome. I am less certain. When moral majority religious right is in power, defunding contraception and abortion in Africa happens. Which consequently leads to a rise in child poverty, mortality and other problems. Melinda Gates funding initiatives here were at odds with the U.S. Government for some periods of time. I do not like the dependency on private benificence.
I certainly think the rest of the world should pick up the funding pace, but I worry the shift in geopolitics here will turn out to be net-negative for the U.S. -certainly, in respect of womens reproductive rights I think thats a good thing (because of the extreme variability/volatility in the U.S. agenda here) but in other ways it may not be: Donor economies with less ethical basis may now demand votes in other contexts to support them. You're handing soft-power to other people. Are you sure you want to do that?
The U.S. may lose influence. If you are a WW1 era protectionist/isolationist, thats a good thing. I am not, I suspect you aren't either. But maybe you are?
What about just not being a total money pit AND the money not being used against us?
That’s a far cry from optimizing for US foreign policy,
Remember these famous WHO quotes ?
"Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission."
"There is no clear evidence of sustained transmission between people."
Until people were falling dead on TV, the WHO doubled down on this crap. There was no apology given for their utterly corrupt incompetence.
Knowing that it came from China would have saved 0 lives. However, bickering about costs and sanctions would have. In the end we figured it out anyway.
That Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was chinas candidate is well known. It’s not a controversial statement.
There are clearly quotes of interest that one would expect from a candidate supported by China. We need to reach a point where the international organizations don’t have “sides” but humanity isn’t there yet.
Unlike the Trump administration, who were very eager to apologize for their own corrupt incompetent advice?