Forty-nine senators recently wrote a letter to President Joe Biden informing him they find it "unacceptable" to give away U.S. decision-making power to the World Health Organization (WHO) for future pandemics. "The WHO's failure during the COVID-19 pandemic was as total as it was predictable and did lasting harm to our country," says the letter.
Former GOP Representative Michele Bachmann tells AFN that most of the senators who signed the letter weren't aware of this issue a year ago. "[They wrote that] letter to Joe Biden telling him that they did not want to see his administration put the United States into an agreement with the WHO, whereby the U.S. would lose control over declaring a public health emergency of international concern here in the U.S.," she explains.
Senate opposition to the agreement is viewed as a big deal. Critics believe what the WHO wants to do amounts to a treaty – and as the letter points out, the Senate is the part of the legislative branch that decides treaties:
"The WHO's most recent publicly available draft of its new pandemic response treaty is dead on arrival," the letter states. "Should you ignore [our] advice, we state in the strongest possible terms that we consider any such agreement to be a treaty requiring the concurrence of two-thirds of the Senate under Article II Section 2 of the Constitution."
Meanwhile, WHO officials deny the pandemic accord is a power grab, something Bachmann is not buying. "We want to retain our power over health care rather than ceding that power to the United Nations," she states.
The World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of WHO, is meeting on May 27 to discuss these matters. Bachmann, meanwhile, is working with Sovereignty Coalition to discuss the issues and share concerns.
"[During Zoom meetings] we have the top people in the world from the world of medicine, law, government, who join us and they give the latest in their perspectives on what's happening with the WHO," she adds.
The lead signatory to the letter was Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin). Thursday on Washington Watch, Johnson expressed his appreciation that all his Republican colleagues joined in the letter.
"Our preference would be to just withdraw from these negotiations," he shares. "But even if Biden agrees to this for the United States, we're saying he should deem that a treaty [and] it should come before the United States Senate for discussion, for debate, and a vote on ratification."
"Presidents are abusing their authority in terms of entering these agreements, calling them executive agreements, when clearly, they fall under the guidelines of what treaties should be. So, again, the American people understand what our president is getting America involved in."
In addition, every GOP member of the Senate is backing Johnson's No WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty without Senate Approval Act (S.444). Comparable legislation in the U.S. House (H.R. 1425) had 49 cosponsors (all Republican) at press time.
