California to join WHO health network in rebuke of Trump

SACRAMENTO, California — Gavin Newsom said Friday that California is joining the World Health Organization’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, marking the state’s first formal partnership with the WHO’s international public health arm and the latest move by the governor to cast California as a counterweight to the Trump administration’s health policy agenda.

The announcement follows the Trump administration’s withdrawal of the United States from WHO.

“We will continue to foster partnerships across the globe and remain at the forefront of public health preparedness,” Newsom said in a statement.

Newsom, who discussed the collaboration with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during his recent trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, explicitly framed the move as a rebuke to President Donald Trump.

“Countering Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the World Health Organization, California is the first American state to join the WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert & Response Network,” Newsom wrote Friday on X.

The partnership builds on a series of health initiatives Newsom has rolled out in recent months amid what his office cast as gaps in federal health care leadership. Last month, the governor announced the launch of the Public Health Network Innovation Exchange, and in October he joined 14 other governors in launching the Governors Public Health Alliance, an independent public health network.