The United States has released $600m for Gavi while saying it will not provide US Government funding to the World Health Organization through the vaccine alliance. The move ties renewed support to reforms and keeps a hard line in place against channeling money to the WHO through Gavi.
The decision is now drawing attention because it puts two messages side by side: fresh money for one global vaccine programme and a cutoff for the other institution that works through it. Susan Collins welcomed the step, after pushing for the reinstatement of US funding for the global programme, making the announcement a live political win for supporters who wanted the money restored.
The joint statement from the U.S. Department of State and the Department of Health and Human Services said the move follows Donald Trump's instructions to Robert Kennedy Jr and Marco Rubio to negotiate reforms with Gavi as a condition for renewed US support. That is where the newly released money comes from: a negotiated return, not an unconditional reopening of the spigot. The US has not said the release is tied to a broader reset of its health-policy posture, only that Gavi met enough of the administration's demands to unlock the funds.
Those demands were not limited to generic efficiency talks. Gavi agreed to work toward replacing mercury-containing vaccines with mercury-free alternatives, with the work to be carried out alongside its board and partner countries. That gives the announcement a concrete policy edge beyond the funding headline, and it is the clearest example of the reforms Washington said it wanted before renewing support.
But the split decision also leaves a built-in contradiction. The United States is restoring $600m for Gavi while saying the WHO cannot be funded through that channel, even though Gavi is one of the groups that helps move vaccine support into countries that depend on outside financing. The administration is reopening one route while closing another, a distinction that will matter to health officials watching how much of the money, if any, can still support work that overlaps with WHO-linked priorities.
The fight is part of a longer break between Donald Trump and the World Health Organization. Trump ordered a temporary halt to funding in 2020 over the coronavirus pandemic, accused the organization of promoting China's disinformation about the virus, then announced on January 20, 2025 that the United States would withdraw and suspended US contributions. Joe Biden later restored funding in 2021 and halted the withdrawal process, but the latest move shows the Trump administration has returned to the same pressure point with a narrower, more transactional tool. The WHO still backs programmes for polio, tuberculosis, HIV, malaria, measles and emergency responses in places including Gaza, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is why the funding route matters far beyond one alliance. What remains unresolved is whether this bargain is the beginning of a longer restructuring of US support, or just the price Washington required to turn the taps back on for now.
