The World Anti-Doping Agency called on the United States to pay its overdue member fees on Thursday and refused to consider an independent to examine its finances.
At a press conference for the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, WADA president Witold Banka said that it was time for the U.S. to pay its share of fees that all member federations contribute to the agency’s annual operating budget.
“I don’t know any other international organization with such strong auditing mechanisms, so I think there are no obstacles for our friends from U.S. to fulfill their duties and pay the contributions,” Banka said. “I think it fulfills the expectations or the wishes from the U.S. side, and the most important thing in principle, the contribution is not conditional. That is the thing which is extremely important for us.”
The U.S. has not paid its WADA dues from 2024 and 2025, a move first implemented by the Biden administration in 2024 and carried over by the Trump administration, totaling more than $7 million. Based on WADA’s budget disclosure for 2026, the U.S. allocation of dues payment is $3,957,756.
The withholding of the fees is part of a deeper rift between the U.S. and WADA and stems from the doping agency’s handling of 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive for banned substances but were allowed to compete at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
Several of the swimmers won medals, including gold, and news of the positive tests were not revealed until a 2024 report in The New York Times uncovered that China’s doping agency knew about the test results.
WADA accepted China’s explanation that contaminated food trigged the positive tests and did not launch its own investigation because of global Covid-19 pandemic restrictions. Among the numerous questions that emerged from the 2024 report in The Times is why three years elapsed before information about the positive tests became public.
The U.S. is the largest financial backer of all of WADA’s member nations and the ability to withhold funds is part of a regulation enacted by the first Trump administration in 2015 to withhold payments in response to the discovery of a Russian state-sponsored doping program that year. The Trump administration in 2015 believed that WADA was unwilling to impose harsh penalties against Russia.
The U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, which is responsible for issuing payments, quickly replied to Banka’s remarks on Thursday and reiterated the Trump administration’s stance on its handling of matters related to WADA.
“The United States will not be bullied or manipulated into paying dues to WADA until such is achieved,” Sara Carter, the director of the ONDCP said.
Carter’s office has insisted on an external audit of WADA and the U.S. refusing to pay its dues resulted in its removal as from the agency’s executive committee even though it represented more than 40 nations. Rahul Gupta, who preceded Carter at the ONDCP, was ousted from the executive committee when the U.S. initially did not make its payment.
“I hope very soon they’re going to pay the contribution and come back to the executive committee as a member,” Banka said.
Bipartisan action against WADA within the U.S. has escalated in recent months and in December the agency was criticized by Congress over its actions in trying to find who leaked information that led to the clearing of Chinese swimmers.
Senators Marsha Blackburn and Chris Van Hollen and representatives John Moolenaar and Raja Krishnamoorthi issued a public letter to Banka over “Operation Puncture” and its aim to target whistleblowers.
“While WADA claims that their motivations are innocent, it appears this investigation’s intent is to intimidate and suppress whistleblowers,” the letter read. “If these allegations are accurate, WADA is not defending clean sport but is continuing to defend a cover-up.”
