Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on IMF and World Bank Reforms for Global Trade

Refocusing the IMF's Core Mission

• 🎯 The IMF must return to its core mission of promoting international monetary cooperation, facilitating balanced international trade, and encouraging economic growth.
• ⚠️ Mission creep has led the IMF to devote excessive time and resources to climate change, gender, and social issues, crowding out critical macroeconomic work.
• 🔍 The IMF needs to be a "brutal truth teller," calling out countries like China for globally distortive policies and opaque currency practices, and also addressing unsustainable lending practices by creditor countries.
• 💰 IMF lending should focus on addressing balance of payment problems and be temporary, with reforms as a condition for support, not just the volume of lending.

Reforming the World Bank for Purpose

• 💡 The World Bank must be made "fit for purpose" by returning to its core mission of helping developing countries grow economies, reduce poverty, and increase private investment.
• ⚡ The bank should use its resources efficiently by focusing on increasing energy access, prioritizing dependable technologies that sustain economic growth, and supporting an "all of the above" approach to energy development, including fossil fuels and nuclear energy.
• 📈 The World Bank must apply its graduation policy more rigorously, focusing lending on poorer, less creditworthy countries where its support makes the biggest difference for poverty and growth.
• 🔑 Continued lending to countries that have met graduation criteria siphons off resources, crowds out private markets, and disincentivizes countries from moving towards private sector-led growth.

Trump Administration's Economic Leadership

• 🇺🇸 The Trump administration is committed to maintaining and expanding US economic leadership, particularly within international financial institutions like the IMF and World Bank.
• 🤝 The administration will leverage US leadership to push these institutions to accomplish their core mandates and demand accountability for demonstrating real progress from their management and staff.