Trump pulls US from WHO pandemic reforms

President Donald Trump's administration said Friday the United States was rejecting changes agreed last year for the World Health Organization on its pandemic response, saying they violated US sovereignty.

Trump on returning to office on January 20 immediately began the withdrawal of the United States from the UN body, but the State Department said the language from last year would still have been binding on the United States.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, who is a longtime critic of vaccines, said that the changes "risk unwarranted interference with our national sovereign right to make health policy."

"We will put Americans first in all our actions and we will not tolerate international policies that infringe on Americans' speech, privacy or personal liberties," they said in a joint statement.