The United States and the European Union on Friday rejected a declaration by member countries of the United Nations that pledged international collaboration and solidarity in preparing for and responding to pandemics.
The declaration, the product of a high-level U.N. meeting on pandemic preparedness, is largely ceremonial. It is not legally binding, and does not set rules for what countries should do during pandemics. But its universal endorsement would have signaled a powerful expression of global political commitment to the issue.
Its rejection by some of the wealthiest countries sharpened the divide that became apparent during the coronavirus pandemic, when low-income nations lagged richer countries by more than a year in being able to provide vaccines to citizens.
The declaration will now be considered at a future meeting of the General Assembly, where it is still likely to garner enough votes to be adopted.
The reasons for the disagreements varied. The European Union said the document crossed “red lines” on intellectual property protections, and that “technology transfer must be voluntary and on mutually agreed terms.”
The Trump administration’s objections were more along ideological lines. Representing the United States at the session, Dr. Erica Schwartz, the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that despite some meaningful revisions, the document included “divisive ideologies that lack definitional consensus,” adding that “the United States is not in a position to support this text in full.”
She did not clarify what those ideologies were, but in an early draft viewed by The New York Times, the United States asked to delete mentions of equity, solidarity and universal access to sexual and reproductive health care services. U.S. officials suggested edits throughout the process that would have made the Trump administration more comfortable with the language, according to one official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Since President Trump’s second inauguration last year, the United States has refused to sign onto a number of public health declarations. At a U.N. meeting last year, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivered the message that the United States would not sign a political declaration on chronic diseases and mental health, saying that the U.N. was exceeding its “proper role” and that it promoted abortion and “radical gender ideology.” Earlier this year, the United States was the lone vote against a global commitment to reduce traffic accidents, saying road safety was being used “as a backdoor vehicle to enforce global climate pacts.”
Representatives of some countries like India and Germany also voiced qualms about the declaration’s text, but did not go so far as to reject it. Like the United States, Italy explicitly rejected the document.
“It is disappointing that the high level meeting was not asked to endorse the political declaration which had been negotiated by member states,” said Helen Clark, a former prime minister of New Zealand and a co-chair of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response.
“Agreeing to collaborate to prevent, prepare for and respond to pandemics should not be controversial,” she said.
Peter Maybarduk, the director of access to medicines for the advocacy group Public Citizen, said the administration’s stance was detrimental to the interests of Americans.
“Blocking stepped-up cooperation against pandemics is an obvious shortsighted, unforced error,” he said. “The White House loves to talk about making other countries do their fair share, but it’s missing a chance to help that happen here, just to serve a myopic ideology.”
Others were more sanguine. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization, said at a press briefing on Friday that it was “not a problem” for the declaration to be voted on and adopted at a future meeting. “It’s democracy in action,” he said.
Friday’s meeting came three years after the first major U.N. meeting on pandemic preparedness, when the lessons from Covid were still raw. The 2023 declaration, which the Biden administration supported, recognized “the need to tackle health inequities and inequalities, within and among countries.”
Last year, after several rounds of failed negotiations, member nations of the W.H.O. — which no longer includes the United States — agreed to the text of a pandemic treaty that would allow for a more coordinated and equitable response to global outbreaks. But that treaty cannot be ratified and become international law until the countries can agree to the most contentious section, called Pathogen Access and Benefits Sharing.
That agreement would require countries to swiftly share genetic sequences and samples of emerging pathogens, allowing for rapid development of diagnostic tests, vaccines and treatments. Low-income nations want to be compensated for the information with quick and equitable access to the new tools, but higher-income nations have said they worry such arrangements would hinder progress in fast-moving crises and jeopardize intellectual property rights.
“A path must be found through the current impasse in negotiations,” Ms. Clark implored member nations in her opening remarks.
The administration’s rejection of the new U.N. declaration did not come as a surprise. Pandemic-related events during U.N. General Assembly sessions in New York this week were abuzz with rumors that U.S. officials would raise objections during Friday’s meeting. The only uncertainty seemed to be the timing and intensity of their disapproval.
All week, officials from member countries have been bemoaning what some called “Covid amnesia,” and shrinking global aid. Many cited as urgent concerns the very factors to which the United States objected.
“Climate change, land-use pressure, and the movement of people and animals are pushing pathogens across species barriers more and more frequently,” Justin Nsengiyumva, Rwanda’s prime minister, said at an event on Wednesday.
On Friday, representatives of countries, including Cape Verde and a union of 23 Caribbean nations, also noted climate disasters as a key vulnerability in their ability to cope with health emergencies. Dozens of other countries, including China, Mexico, Brazil, Thailand, Ghana and Russia, emphasized the need for equity and solidarity among nations.
Before Dr. Schwartz, the C.D.C. director, addressed the session, some speakers appeared to forestall previous criticisms from the Trump administration.
In his opening comments, Khalilur Rahman, the president of the General Assembly, said that to consider pandemic preparedness beyond the remit of the United Nations “would be a fallacy.”
“The charter and the United Nations were designed precisely to tackle global challenges for which no single isolated response can suffice,” Dr. Rahman, a Bangladeshi economist, said.
Last year, the Trump administration withdrew from the W.H.O. and rejected the International Health Regulations, which set detailed rules for countries to follow in the event of an outbreak that could breach borders. (The regulations prompted disclosure of the hantavirus outbreak in May, for example.)
In justifying that stance, Mr. Kennedy incorrectly said the I.H.R. would grant the W.H.O. the ability to “order global lockdowns,” and undermine U.S. sovereignty. Italy made similar comments when refusing to agree to the pandemic treaty, and in rejecting Friday’s declaration.
Dr. Tedros of the W.H.O. directly addressed that misunderstanding.
“The pandemic agreement and the I.H.R. do not — I repeat, do not — infringe on national sovereignty in any way,” he said. “On the contrary, they have been negotiated and adapted by sovereign states as an act of their sovereignty, because they recognize that pandemics do not respect borders.”
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