Foreign policy experts have praised a new Trump administration initiative designed to replace one of the world’s most noxious global governance bodies with an “alternative that respects national sovereignty.”

A high-ranking Trump Cabinet official proposed that the nations of the world abandon the World Health Organization (WHO) and form their own cooperative body aimed at improving health unencumbered by a world health bureaucracy or the influence of hostile nations — and he has already enlisted the help of one of the most energetic presidents on the planet.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently revealed he and President of Argentina Javier Milei met to discuss “our nations’ mutual withdrawal from the WHO and the creation of an alternative international health system based on gold-standard science and free from totalitarian impulses, corruption, and political control.”

Kennedy publicly announced the movement to build a new, sovereignty-based health movement out of the shell of the WHO on May 20, the day the 78th World Health Assembly in Geneva adopted the final text of the WHO Pandemic Agreement. In a video presentation to its delegates, Kennedy pronounced the WHO “moribund” and called on national health ministers to “create new institutions” aimed more at cooperation than top-down control.

On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring that the United States will withdraw from the World Health Organization after the mandatory one-year waiting period, effective January 2026. The government of Argentina announced its exit from WHO on February 5. “We Argentinians will not allow an international organization to intervene in our sovereignty, much less in our health,” said presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni.

Kennedy praised the decision and promised to build on it. “Withdrawal marks the beginning of a new path — toward building a modern global health cooperation model grounded in scientific integrity, transparency, sovereignty, and accountability,” announced Kennedy in a joint statement with Argentine Minister of Health Mario Lugones during his May 27 visit to Buenos Aires.

Both nations have faulted the WHO’s response to COVID-19 and its growing domination by the Chinese Communist Party, which lobbied for the election of current Secretary-General Tedros Ghebreyesus, a former official in Ethiopia’s radical left-wing government. 

A pro-family analyst said that if other nations join the conversation, it could lead to a brighter future for health, liberty, and conscience rights. “These discussions could lead to a promising alternative pathway to the global governance that has become entrenched at organizations like the WHO,” Travis Weber, vice president for Policy and Government Affairs at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand. “Any alternative that respects national sovereignty and the will of the people is a promising step toward freedom and operating in the light and out of the shadows.”

“The protection of individual freedom and the family unit are important priorities to factor into such discussions, along with ensuring that whenever possible, decision-making is pushed down to the local level — all while ensuring that any such alternative arrangements truly respect national sovereignty,” said Weber.

Secretary Kennedy concluded his visit by posing with two gifts from President Milei: a golden chainsaw and a “Don’t Tread on Me” hat. Upon taking office in December 2023, the libertarian Milei cut government spending by 30%, balanced the budget within a month, created a national surplus, and reduced monthly inflation from 25% a month to 2.7%. “The Argentine government, for its part, inherited a devastated health care system and is now making rapid progress in rebuilding and strengthening it, with a renewed focus on transparency and quality care for all citizens,” said Kennedy and Lugones.

“We can no longer support a system that fails to protect our people or deliver on its mandate,” they insisted.