GOP fires warning shot at Biden over ‘deeply flawed’ WHO treaty on pandemic response

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Senate Republicans warned Tuesday they will oppose any attempt by the Biden administration to adhere to an emerging World Health Organization treaty on how to respond to future pandemics unless that treaty first wins Senate approval.

Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, and 14 other GOP senators introduced a resolution making it clear that any WHO treaty with legal force relating to pandemic response that creates "significant international commitments" must be approved by the Senate.

The resolution reflects Republican worries that Biden will look to adopt treaty obligations without first asking the Senate and that the treaty itself is being negotiated in a way that may benefit China at the expense of the United States. 

Risch said the negotiating process is giving China far too much control over global pandemic rules when the WHO should instead be looking to hold China accountable for its role in spreading COVID.

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Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, and other Republican senators say Biden needs to present the WHO-negotiated treaty on pandemic response to the Senate. (Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)

"The WHO failed to hold China accountable for the global spread of COVID-19, which killed over 1 million Americans and thousands of Idahoans," Risch added. "Giving it power over any future health emergency affecting the U.S. would be a disaster with potentially deadly consequences."

"The United States is a sovereign nation that cannot cede power to the deeply flawed World Health Organization for any future health emergency," Risch said.

The WHO’s decision-making body, the World Health Assembly, agreed in December 2021 to negotiate an international agreement aimed at coordinating pandemic responses after COVID found its way into every country and disrupted the global economy. The WHO is aiming for a treaty by May 2024.

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Republicans say the WHO failed to hold China accountable for the COVID pandemic and is now giving China a seat at the table in talks to create a global pandemic response protocol. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

An aide to Risch said WHO members so far are debating ideas like whether intellectual property rights should be waived during a pandemic to quickly produce a vaccine and whether wealthy nations should be expected to do more to fight a pandemic compared to less wealthy nations. Those potentially controversial ideas, some of which could heavily favor China depending on the details of the final agreement, are one reason why GOP senators are pushing for Senate ratification.

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The Biden administration has so far declined to say whether it will present the final agreement as a treaty for the Senate to review or as a political agreement or some other form of deal that won’t need Senate approval. An aide to Risch said the executive branch over the last several years has shown a preference for labeling international agreements as something other than treaties to avoid the need for a Senate vote.

That aide noted the president has "broad constitutional authority" on how to view international agreements, which is why Senate Republicans fear it may never reach the Senate.

The GOP worries President Biden might go around the Senate and seek to adhere to the WHO agreement without any consent from Congress. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The resolution seeks to pressure the Biden administration on this issue by declaring that the Senate views the WHO agreement as a treaty that must be ratified before it imposes legal requirements on the United States. It’s designed to be like an internal Senate rule that only needs Senate approval and not Biden’s signature to take effect.

If Biden still chose not to present the treaty to the Senate for ratification, the resolution also creates a new mechanism by which senators could quickly reject proposals to fund actions under the treaty.

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Risch is the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and an aide to Risch said Republicans are "hopeful" there are enough Democrats who want to defend the institution of the Senate that the resolution can be brought up and debated this year.