The IMF and World Bank need US leadership – just not from Trump

The world's financial leadership, leavened with a sprinkling of civil society activists, gathered in Washington DC last week for the spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank. Usually, the two sorts of visitors are at odds on the future of the twin institutions. On this occasion there was an anxious unanimity; both shared a similar concern. Were the two organisations next in President Trump's firing line? Might the US even withdraw from them?

- Mark Malloch-Brown

Then, on Wednesday, Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, seemed to offer a reprieve. In his first formal comments on the institutions, he said: "Far from stepping back, America First seeks to expand US leadership in international institutions such as the IMF and World Bank." The relief in the conference rooms and Foggy Bottom bars and cafes was palpable; the instant reaction, we can live with this.

However, as the week went on, doubts returned. Was this White House policy, or just treasury policy? Might the president ultimately decide differently? In the chaotic power process of Trump's Washington, it is hard to know.

Bessent acknowledged what an extraordinarily good deal these institutions have been, contributing to the prosperous US run since the second world war as leader of an international order based on globalising markets and the rule of law. But critics of the Bretton Woods institutions lurk in Congress and in the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Russell Vought, the OMB director, was one of the authors of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's unofficial blueprint for a second Trump term. It called for US withdrawal from both the IMF and World Bank.

Moreover, Bessent's commitment to staying in was linked to a demand that the institutions revert to being reliable instruments of US priorities, including by dropping contested themes such as climate and gender and prioritising the energy sector. In other words, this will be membership on America First terms.