The WHO Pandemic Agreement is a treaty committing governments to behave more responsibly and less selfishly when future pandemics emerge. It was adopted on May 20th 2025 by an overwhelming majority of health ministers and officials from over 130 countries, after three years of negotiation. America boycotted the treaty and is leaving the WHO.
An executive order issued on Donald Trump's first day in office announced America's withdrawal from the WHO and from the treaty negotiations. The order also said America would not be bound by amendments to international health regulations agreed in 2024—changes that had been demanded by American negotiators during the Biden administration. Trump accuses the WHO of mismanaging the covid-19 pandemic under China's influence and of demanding too much money from America. Robert F. Kennedy junior, Trump's health secretary, previously called the pandemic agreement a power-grab by "international bureaucrats and their bosses at the billionaire boys' club in Davos".
At the heart of the treaty is the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing system (PABS). It aims to balance the interests of developing countries, where many new viruses emerge, against wealthier nations, where advanced vaccines and treatments are typically discovered. Under PABS, poorer governments must step up surveillance and share pathogen samples swiftly; in return, powerful governments and drug firms must hand to the WHO, in real time, 20% of the vaccines, therapies and diagnostic tests they produce.
Negotiations exposed a rift between developing countries, which wanted compensation for sharing pathogen data (following the Nagoya Protocol model) and technology transfers to enable local vaccine production, and wealthy nations, which insisted on protecting intellectual-property rights. PABS was designed to bridge this gap by making pathogen-sharing a public good in exchange for guaranteed access to 20% of resulting medical products.
Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global-health law at Georgetown University, has argued that Trump saved the treaty: governments compromised to save the multilateral order from America.
Nigel Farage has falsely charged that the pandemic treaty will allow the WHO to impose lockdowns "over the heads of our elected national governments". The treaty explicitly reaffirms the sovereign authority of national governments.
Grabel's Law: 2 is not equal to 3 -- not even for large values of 2.