The idea sounds outlandish, if not downright impossible.
Leaders at the World Anti-Doping Agency are considering adopting a rule that could bar President Donald Trump and all U.S. government officials from attending major international events — even if they take place on American soil.
A few coming up are as big as they get: this summer’s World Cup; the LA Olympics in 2028; the Winter Games in Utah in 2034.
This is not a fight of Trump’s choosing, but rather one being pursued by WADA itself, which has been the subject of bipartisan and virtually universal disapproval in Congress, in the Trump and Biden administrations and in the offices of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency for most of this decade.
The proposal, on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting of the WADA executive committee, is the latest and most extreme maneuver in a yearslong exchange of rhetoric, threats and fighting between all parties. It stems from the U.S. government’s refusal to pay its annual WADA dues.
The U.S. has held back a total of $7.3 million over 2024 and 2025 in protest of WADA’s handling of a number of issues over the years, most recently, a case involving Chinese swimmers who were allowed to compete despite testing positive for a banned substance. WADA took Chinese regulators’ word that the athletes had been accidentally contaminated.
WADA spokesman James Fitzgerald said the rule, if passed, would “not (be) applied retroactively so World Cup, LA and SLC Games would not be covered.” However, the proposal, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, does not include language to that effect.
Fitzgerald did not respond to a series of follow-up questions sent Monday, including one asking how a rule being considered for passage this year would not be applied retroactively to events that have not taken place. Fitzgerald did say last week that the final decision wasn’t due until November, after the World Cup, though correspondence between WADA and European officials indicated that decision could come sooner.
Here’s a look at how they got to this point and where they might go next.
What is WADA?
WADA came into existence in 1999 and was charged with writing the rules that governed anti-doping in sports and making sure they were executed correctly.
In recent years, with the onset of more troubling and complexdoping sagas, WADA has gotten more involved in investigating doping allegations — a function that has largely been handled by the dozens of organizations that oversee the use of performance enhancers in certain countries and sports.
WADA’s funding comes equally from two places — governments of countries that participate in the Olympic movement and the International Olympic Committee. Representatives on WADA’s key decision-making bodies are generally divided equally between sports and government.
What gives WADA the power to ban Trump?
Part of sending teams to major international events, such as the Olympics and the World Cup, requires everyone involved to pledge to follow WADA’s rules, whether they’re directly related to doping or to administrative issues, the likes of which the latest proposal covers.
Sports organizations — for instance the IOC and the governing bodies of individual sports — are considered “signatories” to the WADA code.
Governments are tethered to WADA as part of an agreement they sign with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Like sports organizations, the UNESCO arrangement includes the governments agreeing to pay dues and follow WADA’s rules,.
Could WADA really prevent Trump from attending an event in his own country?
It’s hard to see how. Rahul Gupta — the drug czar during the Biden Administration who was every bit as critical of WADA as is his successor, Sara Carter — called the idea “ludicrous.”
Gupta said that’s not just because it would be logistically impossible to restrict where the U.S. president goes, but it would also send the wrong message to a host nation, which oversees the games and ensures the proper investments are made in security, venues and other infrastructure.
“That’s the responsibility of the government, not so much WADA,” Gupta said. “It’s clear that WADA attempting to propagate any rules-based system that interferes with a government, especially a host government — that would be a concern to any government.”
Trump’s people aren’t happy with this. What about other U.S. politicians?
While Trump has not weighed in on this specifically, Carter, his drug czar, said the U.S. government “will continue to stand firm in our demand for accountability and transparency from WADA to ensure fair competition in sport.”
WADA has had the rare effect of bringing together politicians from both sides of the aisle. A bill adopting the doping-fighting Rodchenkov Act, key parts of which were strongly opposed by WADA, passed without a dissenting vote in Congress six years ago.
More recent attempts to hold WADA accountable, which resulted in the dues being held up, have drawn bipartisan support in both houses of Congress.
After the latest news, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said on social media that the proposal was “Further proof we’re doing the right thing by demanding accountability and defunding WADA.”
What is WADA’s reason for proposing such a rule?
WADA runs on a budget of around $57.5 million and the U.S. chunk is significant, though hardly the only payment that has gone missing over the years. One analysis of dues payments, obtained by the AP, showed that only 49% of African countries had paid their WADA dues for 2025.
But no country has been more critical of WADA than the United States, which has floated the idea of holding back dues since 2020 and finally followed through two years ago.
WADA says this idea is ‘nothing new.’ What does that mean?
That’s true.
WADA has been examining this idea since 2020 — around the time the threats from the U.S. started getting louder. In 2024, the idea actually came to the executive committee. Gupta was on that panel back then and led the move to reject it. The U.S. no longer has a representative on the executive committee.
So why is it coming up now?
WADA hasn’t provided answers to this one, other than to say the rule wouldn’t apply “retroactively” and that the World Cup, LA and Utah Olympics would not be impacted.
WADA says the next meeting of its foundation board – the group that would have to formally adopt any recommendation approved by the executive committee — isn’t until November, four months after the World Cup ends.
But in a Q&A with European officials about the rule, a copy of which was obtained by AP, WADA told the officials that such a rule “could be implemented without due delay.”
If this has already been rejected once, why try again?
The Europeans asked WADA that same question. The future of the rule had been delegated to a WADA “discussion group” that was supposed to report back to the executive committee but hasn’t done so yet.
WADA’s answer said that legal issues involving fining countries that don’t pay their dues have been resolved (the fine portions have been removed).
“Little meaningful progress was made in the latest meetings of the Discussion Group and there is no reason (given the foregoing) not to bring this matter to the ExCo as a decision-making organ of WADA,” it said.
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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
