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.

The WHO is an agency of the United Nations tasked with coordinating responses to public health emergencies between nations. The United States is a founding member of the organization, which was set up in 1948 in the wake of World War II.

Public health experts say the United States’ departure could cripple the WHO’s operations or leave an opening for China to assume greater control over the agency.

Public health experts say U.S. withdrawal from the W.H.O. would undermine the nation’s standing as a global health leader and make it harder to fight the next pandemic.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order that would begin the process of removing the U.S. from the World Health Organization. Here's why.

The ending of the commitment to the World Health Organization by the United States poses as an existential threat to the well-being of the international working class.

The U.S. has traditionally been the most generous benefactor of the WHO. A Trump executive order to cut ties with the WHO could pose a threat to global public health.

The U.S. withdrawal from WHO has seismic implications on issues like prevention of future pandemics, and the stakes are especially high for Canada.

Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been ordered to stop working with the World Heath Organization immediately, following President Donald Trump’s executive order withdrawing the U.