“Ooh, that’s a big one,” Donald Trump said Monday as he signed an executive order – one of dozens during his first hours as president – to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization.

What lies behind the move, and what could the impact be? WHO, the United Nations health agency that helps protect the health and security of the world’s people, receives about a fifth of its budget from the US.

Trump has blasted WHO as “corrupt” and accused it of ripping America off, and millions of Americans who voted for him are increasingly skeptical of the value of such international structures. But experts have warned that the withdrawal of WHO’s most influential member could harm global health.

In a statement Tuesday, the organization said it regretted the US decision, noting that it had, “over the past 7 years implemented the largest set of reforms in its history, to transform our accountability, cost-effectiveness, and impact in countries.”

The US withdrawal is the “most momentous” of all the executive orders signed Monday, said Lawrence Gostin, a public health law professor at Georgetown University, warning it “could be sowing the seeds for the next pandemic.”

Here’s how Trump’s decision could affect WHO and global health more widely.

What does WHO do?

WHO is one of several global institutions that emerged from the wreckage of World War II. After the world was torn apart by nationalism and conflict, countries agreed to sacrifice some aspects of their sovereignty for the common good.

The agency was founded in 1948 in an attempt to protect the world’s health. Its constitution, signed by all UN members at the time, warned that “unequal development” in the health systems of different countries was a “common danger.” The organization’s objective is “the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health.”

Thomas Parran, then the US surgeon general, said WHO was more than a health agency, but a “powerful instrument forged for peace” that would “contribute to the harmony of human relations.”

Today, the agency works in more than 150 locations around the world, leads efforts to expand universal health coverage and directs the international response to health emergencies, from yellow fever to cholera and Ebola.

The agency has, however, been criticized for being inefficient, opaque, overly reliant on private donors and hamstrung by political concerns.

What has it achieved?

WHO’s most notable achievement was the eradication of smallpox, which marked a rare instance of cooperation between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

In 1967, the organization set the ambitious target of wiping out the disease in a decade. The last known case was in Somalia in 1977. By 1980, WHO could declare smallpox eradicated – the only infectious disease to achieve this distinction.

Because the organization is so large, its effects are often “diffuse,” said Francois Balloux, director of the Genetics Institute at University College London (UCL). He pointed to the near-universal upward trend in life expectancy since WHO’s founding as an achievement for which the agency also deserves credit.

More recently, it has led responses to disease outbreaks like Ebola in West Africa, which killed at least 11,000 of the more than 28,000 people infected from 2014-2016. Working with local authorities, WHO conducted research on the safety of a newly developed vaccine – which achieved near-perfect efficacy and helped stem the spread of the disease.

Why does Trump want to withdraw?

Trump first tried to exit WHO during his first term in 2020, accusing the organization of “severely mismanaging and covering up” the spread of Covid-19.

Trump has long said he believes the coronavirus originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China, which Beijing has sought to obscure. Notably, WHO has shared some of Trump’s concerns and in December – five years since the first case of Covid-19 was detected – called for China to be more transparent to help the world understand how the pandemic began.

During his latest election campaign, Trump was more brazen, calling the organization “nothing more than a corrupt globalist scam” which “disgracefully covered the tracks of the Chinese Communist Party.”

By focusing on the origins of Covid-19, Trump has understated the role that WHO – spearheaded by the US – played in combating the virus once it began to spread, experts say.

Alan Bernstein, director of the Global Health initiative at the University of Oxford, said WHO was crucial in convincing China to release the genetic sequence early in 2020, which was the basis of the vaccines developed in the US.

There is also a financial aspect to Trump’s animosity. The president has previously said that the US contributes around $500 million a year to WHO, compared to China’s $40 million, despite its far larger population.

As he signed Monday’s executive order, Trump was asked whether, as president during Covid-19, he appreciated the importance of agencies like WHO.

“I do, but not when you’re being ripped off like we are,” he replied.

This worldview misses the benefits of cooperation, said Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.

What happens next?

It takes a year to withdraw fully from the agency – which is why Joe Biden was able to halt the US exit four years ago, in one of the first acts of his presidency.

But there are signs that the departure could be swifter this time. Monday’s executive order called on the secretary of state and director of the Office of Management and Budget to pause funding “with all practicable speed.”

Perhaps anticipating Trump’s exit, WHO launched a request earlier this month for $1.5 billion in funding to address 42 ongoing health emergencies. The organization declined to make that connection on a call with reporters on Friday, just days before Trump took office.

Tedros said Tuesday that he “regrets” Trump’s decision, stressing that the US also gains from the agency to which it contributes.

“For over seven decades, WHO and the USA have saved countless lives and protected Americans and all people from health threats. Together, we ended smallpox, and together we have brought polio to the brink of eradication. American institutions have contributed to and benefited from membership in WHO,” Tedros said.

Balloux, of UCL, said the decision could delay the eradication of polio and hamper efforts to combat tuberculosis and HIV.

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his country will respond “robustly” if US President Donald Trump follows through with imposing tariffs on Canada, telling reporters on Tuesday that “everything is on the table.”

“If there are unfair tariffs, we will respond robustly and we will be there to support Canadians and protect our interests,” Trudeau said at the press conference in French when responding to a journalist’s question.

Trump said in an Oval Office signing ceremony Monday evening that his administration will impose a 25% tax on goods from Canada and Mexico that may come as soon as February 1 – a move that could raise prices for American consumers.

Trudeau also addressed Trump’s executive action, signed Monday, that directs officials to analyze how the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement (the USMCA) is affecting American workers and businesses — and whether America should remain in the free trade agreement. His action requires agencies to assess whether stricter US trade policy could successfully restrict the flow of fentanyl and the flow of undocumented migrants into the United States.

“While less than 1% of fentanyl and illegal immigrants that enter the United States come from Canada, our government has already acted to address the concerns raised by the president about border security with an over $1 billion comprehensive border plan,” said Trudeau. “We’re already working collaboratively to keep our citizens safe on both sides of the border.”

“Canadian energy powers American manufacturing, businesses, and homes. Of America’s top five trading partners, Canada is the only one with whom the United States runs a trade surplus in manufacturing, and Canada buys more goods made by Americans than China, Japan and Germany combined,” he said.

Trudeau remarked that Trump’s stated US “golden age” would require more steel, aluminum, minerals and reliable and affordable energy. “Canada has all those resources, and we stand at the ready to work with the United States to create a booming and secure North American economy,” he said.

“The alternative for them would be more resources from Russia, China, or Venezuela. Canada is a safe, secure, and reliable partner in an uncertain world,” he added.

The tariffs, if enacted, could strain Americans’ wallets, especially given Mexico and Canada are two of America’s top three trade partners. Collectively, they accounted for 30% of the value of all the goods the US imported last year, according to federal trade data.

While Trump claims foreign exporters pay the tariffs, US consumers stand to foot a portion of the bill, too, as retailers are unlikely to fully absorb the added costs.

Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan left a hospital in India’s financial capital Mumbai on Tuesday, less than a week after he suffered knife injuries in a scuffle with an intruder at his house, local media reported.

Khan, 54, was stabbed six times by the intruder during an attempted burglary at his home after midnight on Thursday. He had surgery after sustaining stab wounds to his spine, neck and hands, doctors said.

Khan was discharged from hospital on Tuesday afternoon. He smiled at TV cameras from his car and waved his bandaged hand.

On Sunday, police arrested a man, thought to be a citizen of Bangladesh, in connection with the attack and were continuing to investigate the crime.

The suspect, arrested on the outskirts of Mumbai, was using the name Vijay Das, but is believed to be Mohammad Shariful Islam Shehzad, who was working with a housekeeping agency after having come to the city five or six months ago, Dikshit Gedam, a deputy commissioner of police, told a press conference.

The attack on Khan shocked residents of Mumbai as well as fellow Bollywood actors, especially because it took place in an upscale neighbourhood of the city, in an apartment block that is strictly guarded.

Pope Francis is taking the highly unusual decision to dissolve an influential Catholic group from Peru which has been plagued by allegations of abuse from within its community, including allegations related to its founder, for more than a decade.

News of the decision to dissolve the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, which at one point had 20,000 members across South America and parts of the United States, was confirmed in a statement by the group, although the Vatican has yet to comment or publish anything official about the move.

The decision to suppress the Sodalitium was first reported by Spanish-language site Infovaticana with the Sodalitum saying the “central information” in that report was true but that “it contained several inaccuracies,” although it did not specify what these were.

A papal decision to dissolve or suppress a Catholic religious community is rare and in the Sodalitium’s case follows attempts by the church hierarchy to reform the group and a 2023 Vatican investigation which uncovered “sadistic” abuses of power, authority and spirituality. Its founder, Luis Fernando Figari, had earlier been found to have sodomized recruits along with accusations of serious financial mismanagement, according to a 2017 outside investigation ordered by Sodalitium.

After the Vatican probe carried out by Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, Figari was expelled from the order by the pope in August 2024 and a month later the pope expelled 10 more of its leading members. One of those expelled was found to have carried out “abuse in the exercise of the apostolate of journalism,” an unusual charge.

But the victims have waited years for church authorities to act, with victims lodging complaints with the Archdiocese of Lima in 2011 and reportedly even earlier. A turning point came with a 2015 book, “Half Monks, Half Soldiers,” written by one of the victims, Pedro Salinas, and journalist Paola Ugaz.

Founded in 1971 in Peru as a lay group (a “Society of Apostolic Life of Pontifical Right”), the Sodalitium exercised huge influence as it sought to recruit mostly young white boys from elite Catholic schools and upper and middle-class families with political or business links.

It was also politically driven as a fight back against the rise of liberation theology in Latin America, a radical movement which began in the 1960s and focussed on supporting the poor.

Iraq’s parliament passed three divisive laws Tuesday, including amendments to the country’s personal status law that opponents say would in effect legalize child marriage.

The amendments give Islamic courts increased authority over family matters, including marriage, divorce and inheritance. Activists argue that this undermines Iraq’s 1959 Personal Status Law, which unified family law and established safeguards for women.

Proponents of the changes, which were advocated by primarily conservative Shiite lawmakers, defend them as a means to align the law with Islamic principles and reduce Western influence on Iraqi culture.

Iraqi law currently sets 18 as the minimum age of marriage in most cases. The changes passed Tuesday would let clerics rule according to their interpretation of Islamic law, which some interpret to allow marriage of girls in their early teens – or as young as 9 under the Jaafari school of Islamic law followed by many Shiite religious authorities in Iraq.

The parliament also passed a general amnesty law seen as benefiting Sunni detainees and that’s also seen as giving a pass to people involved in corruption and embezzlement. The chamber also passed a land restitution law aimed at addressing Kurdish territorial claims.

Intisar al-Mayali, a human rights activist and a member of the Iraqi Women’s League, said passage of the civil status law amendments “will leave disastrous effects on the rights of women and girls, through the marriage of girls at an early age, which violates their right to life as children, and will disrupt the protection mechanisms for divorce, custody and inheritance for women.”

The session ended in chaos and accusations of procedural violations.

“Half of the lawmakers present in the session did not vote, which broke the legal quorum,” a parliamentary official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly. He said that some members protested loudly and others climbed onto the parliamentary podium.

After the session, a number of legislators complained about the voting process, under which all three controversial laws — each of which was supported by different blocs — were voted on together.

“Regarding the civil status law, we are strongly supporting it and there were no issues with that,” said Raid al Maliki, an independent MP. “But it was combined with other laws to be voted on together…and this might lead to a legal appeal at the Federal Court.”

Parliament Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani in a statement praised the laws’ passage as “an important step in the process of enhancing justice and organizing the daily lives of citizens.”

Also Tuesday, at least three officers, including the national security chief of the al-Tarmiyah district north of Baghdad, were killed and four others wounded in an explosion at an ammunition depot, a security official said.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media, said the explosion occurred as a joint force of the Iraqi army and the national security service conducted an operation following intelligence reports of the Islamic State group’s activity and an ammunition cache in the area.

Seoul, South Korea (Reuters) — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol attended on Tuesday a Constitutional Court hearing of his impeachment trial where he denied ordering military commanders to drag lawmakers out of parliament during his short-lived bid to impose martial law.

Near the start of the hearing, Yoon said he had worked in public service with “a firm commitment to free democracy,” when invited by the acting chief justice, Moon Hyung-bae, to speak.

Dressed in a navy-colored suit with a burgundy tie, Yoon, a career prosecutor before his 2022 election as president, pledged to answer any questions the court might have.

Yoon has been incarcerated since last week under a separate criminal probe on charges of leading an insurrection with his attempt to impose martial law in early December, a move that shocked the nation and was overturned within hours by parliament.

Yoon told the hearing that special forces troops sent to parliament on Dec. 3 were not there to disable the legislature or prevent it from blocking his martial law because he knew such an action would have led to an indefensible crisis.

“In this country, parliament and news media are far more powerful than the president, in a far superior position,” he told the court.

His lawyers outlined arguments in defense of Yoon’s martial law declaration, saying it was meant to sound the alarm over abuses committed by the opposition Democratic Party.

They argued the opposition’s actions had paralyzed government and pushed the country’s democratic and constitutional order to the brink of collapse.

“The decree was intended simply to establish the format of martial law and never intended to be executed, nor was it possible to execute it because of the potential for conflict with higher-level laws,” lawyer Cha Gi-hwan told the court.

Cha also denied testimony by military commanders involved in the martial law declaration who said Yoon and his top aides ordered the arrest of some members of parliament who had politically clashed with the president.

The opposition Democratic Party, joined by minority parties and also 12 members of Yoon’s People Power Party, voted with a two-thirds majority to impeach Yoon on Dec. 14.

Helicopters landing at parliament

The Constitutional Court began the trial on Dec. 27 to review an impeachment motion that accused Yoon of violating his constitutional duty by imposing martial law with no justifiable grounds.

The parliament’s legal team presented testimony from military commanders and video footage showing military helicopters landing on parliament grounds with special forces troops breaking into the main building, as well as troops moving in on the National Election Commission.

One of the lawyers also criticized unproven claims of irregularities at the election commission, which Yoon cited as a factor for justifying martial law.

“In South Korea’s current national chaos, the conspiracy theory of election fraud can destroy our community itself,” said the lawyer.

The Constitutional Court has up to 180 days to decide whether to remove Yoon from office permanently or reinstate him.

Yoon was driven to the hearing from the Seoul Detention Centre, where he is being held, in a correctional service vehicle escorted by a Presidential Security Service motorcade.

He was permitted to change from the khaki prison uniform he currently has to wear.

After the hearing, Yoon visited a medical facility to receive medical attention with prior authorization from the head of the detention center, the Justice Ministry which oversees correctional service said in a statement.

It did not provide further details on privacy grounds.

Yoon’s decision to attend the impeachment hearing contrasts with his vigorous resistance to criminal proceedings against him where he has refused to answer summons by investigators or attend interrogation sessions.

Yoon’s legal team has denied he masterminded an insurrection, a crime in South Korea punishable by life imprisonment or even technically by the death penalty.

Security was heightened at the Constitutional Court on Tuesday, after a mob of angry Yoon supporters went on a rampage through the district court that issued a warrant to extend his detention early on Sunday.

Dozens of police buses were lined bumper-to-bumper on both sides of the street, keeping hundreds of Yoon supporters more than 100 meters (109 yards) away from the court.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping vowed to take his country’s ties with Russia to a new level this year in a video conference with counterpart Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, hours after the inauguration of US President Donald Trump.

The two leaders have made it an annual tradition to speak around the new year – a feature of a close personal rapport that’s helped cement a partnership between their countries that’s only grown as Putin wages war on Ukraine.

Xi expressed his readiness to “guide China-Russia relations to a new height” and respond to “external uncertainties” with the “stability and resilience of China-Russia ties,” a readout from China’s Foreign Ministry said.

The two countries should deepen “strategic coordination” and “practical cooperation” and “firmly support each other,” Xi told the Russian president, who appeared via video link on a large screen in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People during the conference call.

Putin hailed the countries’ expanding trade – which Chinese data show hit a record high last year – and alluded to their shared ambitions to reshape a global order they see as unfairly dominated by the United States.

“We stand united in advocating for a more just multipolar world order and work to ensure indivisible security both in the Eurasian space and globally,” Putin told Xi, according to a Kremlin readout. Moscow and Beijing’s joint efforts “objectively play a major stabilizing role in international affairs,” he claimed.

The call between the two autocrats comes as both closely watch Trump’s return to the White House.

The two leaders have each publicly expressed a hope to reset fraught relations with the US under the new administration. Trump has also signaled interest in engaging with or meeting both leaders early in his presidency, though it’s still unclear how conciliatory or hardline the new administration will be toward either US rival.

Xi and Trump held their own call days before the US president’s inauguration, with the conversation touching on a range of topics including the war in Ukraine, Trump later said.

Xi told Putin about that phone call during the two leaders’ more than hour-and-a-half conversation Tuesday, according to Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov.

“Issues of the two countries’ relations with the United States were also raised,” he said. “In this context, the leaders, naturally, discussed certain aspects of the development of potential contacts with the US administration,” Ushakov added, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

A diplomatic triangle?

Trump has voiced personal admiration for both autocrats, but he’s also expected to seek concessions from each with an eye to evening an economic playing field between the US and China and ending Putin’s assault on Ukraine.

Trump on Tuesday indicated he would consider placing additional sanctions on Russia if Putin failed to come to the negotiating table to end the war.

“We’re talking to (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelensky. We’re going to be talking with President Putin very soon, and we’ll see what – how it all happens,” Trump said.

Trump also suggested he hopes Xi can use his sway to play a role in brokering an end to that conflict, noting that he urged the Chinese leader during their recent call to “get it settled.”

European leaders have long hoped that Xi could play a role bringing Putin around to accepting Ukraine’s peace terms, but the entrance of Trump into the White House and his stated drive to end the war adds new potential for China to play a role.

That could set up a delicate balancing act for Beijing. Xi has long sought to portray China as a potential peace broker in the conflict, even as the US and its allies have accused Beijing of propping up the Russian war effort with the export of dual-use goods, which Beijing denies. Xi is also seen to be keen to build good rapport with Trump to avert potentially damaging tariffs at a time of economic weakness in China.

But the Chinese leader will also likely want to be careful not to damage his partnership with Russia. Xi and Putin inked a “no limits” partnership weeks before Putin’s invasion and Xi sees his Russian counterpart as a critical partner among broader frictions with the West.

Neither the readout from the Kremlin nor China’s Foreign Ministry specified whether the war in Ukraine was discussed during Tuesday’s call between Putin and Xi.

Instead, both readouts referred to the 80th anniversary of the allied victory shared by Beijing and Moscow in World War II. Xi and Putin had each invited the other to commemorate that victory together this year, with events in Russia in May and China in September, the Kremlin said Tuesday.