— Argentina formally left the WHO on March 17 after 78 years of membership, joining the United States in what Milei calls a revolt against “the greatest social control experiment in history”
— Critics accuse the WHO of being financially captured by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, politically manipulated by Beijing during COVID-19, and pushing a pandemic treaty that overrides national sovereignty
— Argentina stays in PAHO, preserving access to pooled vaccine procurement, but loses its seat in global health governance as New Zealand also rejects WHO pandemic rules on the same day
The Argentina WHO withdrawal became official on March 17, exactly one year after Buenos Aires notified the UN of its intent to leave. Chancellor Pablo Quirno confirmed the exit, declaring the country would pursue health cooperation through bilateral deals while “fully safeguarding its sovereignty.”
The Rio Times, the Latin American financial news outlet, examines why Argentina and the United States have concluded the WHO serves billionaire interests and Beijing’s political agenda more than the nations that fund it.
Why Argentina WHO Withdrawal Happened
President Milei has called the WHO “a nefarious organization” and “the executing arm of the greatest social control experiment in history.” Health Minister Mario Lugones reinforced the case, stating the WHO “advanced an agenda marked by ideological biases, moving away from evidence.”
The decision was announced in May 2025 during a visit by US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and the United States formally exited in January 2026. On the same day Argentina left, New Zealand rejected the WHO’s revised International Health Regulations — forming a growing sovereignty-first coalition.
Gates, China, and the Funding Problem
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the WHO’s second-largest funder — roughly $531 million per cycle, representing 88% of all private donations. Most of that money is earmarked for specific Gates priorities like polio and GAVI vaccine programs, meaning the WHO cannot freely set its own health agenda.
Non-communicable diseases like cancer, diabetes, and mental health remain chronically underfunded as a result. Italian Senator Claudio Borghi called the WHO “a giant controlled by Bill Gates,” and the phenomenon of health officials self-censoring criticism of Gates for fear of losing funding has become so widespread it has its own name: “Bill Chill.”
China’s role became a global flashpoint during COVID-19. In January 2020, the WHO tweeted that Chinese authorities found “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission” — a claim that proved catastrophically wrong and that critics say reflected Beijing’s influence over Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
A US Congressional investigation concluded the virus most likely leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, accusing Beijing of a “systematic five-year cover-up.” When WHO investigators visited Wuhan in 2021, they spent three hours inside the institute and admitted they could do little beyond trusting staff assurances.
Director-General Tedros later acknowledged the lab-leak hypothesis had been “prematurely dismissed.” China has refused to provide biosafety records or early patient data, and as of June 2025 the WHO’s own advisory group confirmed it still lacked the data needed to determine the virus’s origin.
The Pandemic Treaty Revolt
The instrument that crystallized opposition was the WHO‘s Pandemic Agreement, adopted at the World Health Assembly in May 2025 after 13 rounds of negotiations. Critics argued it would expand the Director-General’s emergency powers and erode national decision-making.
Fifty-one US Republican senators warned it would compromise sovereignty, and eleven countries — including Poland, Israel, Italy, and Russia — abstained at the Assembly. For governments like Milei’s Argentina, the treaty represented an incremental transfer of authority from elected governments to international bureaucracies funded by private interests.
What Argentina Keeps and What It Loses
Buenos Aires cushioned the departure by remaining in the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), which manages the revolving funds through which Latin American countries purchase vaccines and medicines at reduced prices. Argentina’s pharmaceutical sector is already negotiating export quotas directly through the regional body.
The costs are longer-term: Argentina loses its voice in global epidemiological surveillance, regulatory standard-setting, and pandemic coordination. Whether bilateral deals can replace multilateral membership is the gamble Milei is making — and the answer may not arrive until the next crisis does.
In depth
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