No WHO Pandemic Preppedness Treaty Without Senate Approval Act

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No WHO Pandemic Preppedness Treaty Without Senate Approval Act

HR 4207 IH – Introduced in the House of Representatives on June 26, 2025

BILL INTRODUCTION

A BILL To require any convention, agreement, or other international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response reached by the World Health Assembly to be subject to Senate ratification.

Direct Link: https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/BILLS-119hr4207ih

FINDINGS

Congress makes the following findings:

(1) On May 18, 2020, President Donald Trump announced that United States contributions to WHO would be halted due to its mismanagement of the COVID-19 outbreak and lack of independence from the People’s Republic of China.

(2) President Trump’s May 18 letter cited numerous instances of WHO mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic, including unjustified delays informing member states about a potentially serious disease outbreak in Wuhan, China.

(3) On June 30, 2020, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo formally notified the United Nations of the United States decision to withdraw from WHO.

(4) A Pew Research Center survey conducted in April and May 2020 indicated that 51 percent of Americans felt that WHO had done a poor or fair job in managing the COVID-19 pandemic.

(5) On January 20, 2021, President Joseph Biden sent United Nations Director-General António Guterres a letter retracting the United States notice of withdrawal from WHO.

(6) On December 1, 2021, at the second special session of the World Health Assembly decided to establish an intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) to draft and negotiate a WHO convention on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response.

(7) The INB failed to negotiate an agreement on Convention text and did not present a final draft of the Convention during the Seventy-seventh World Health Assembly held between May 27 and June 1, 2024.

(8) On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump revoked President Joseph Biden’s January 25, 2021, retraction of the United States notice of withdrawal from the WHO.

(9) On May 20, 2025, during the 78th World Health Assembly, WHO member states adopted the INB’s draft of a WHO Pandemic Agreement.

SENSE OF CONGRESS

It is the sense of Congress that:

(1) a significant segment of the American public is deeply skeptical of the World Health Organization, its leadership, and its independence from the pernicious political influence of certain member states, including the People’s Republic of China;
(2) Congress strongly prefers that any agreement related to pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response adopted by the World Health Assembly pursuant to the work of the INB be considered a treaty requiring the advice and consent of the Senate, with two-thirds of Senators concurring;
(3) the scope of the agreement which the INB has been tasked with drafting, as outlined by the Director-General, is so broad that any application of the factors referred to in section 2(11) will weigh strongly in favor of it being considered a treaty;
(4) given the level of public distrust, any relevant new agreement by the World Health Assembly which cannot garner the two-thirds vote needed for Senate approval should not be agreed to or implemented by the United States.