Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called for a course correction for the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, while saying that they serve “critical roles” and that the Trump administration is willing to work with them.
“Under the status quo, they are falling short,” Bessent said of the twin institutions, speaking at an event held by the Institute of International Finance on Wednesday. He singled out the IMF for suffering from “mission creep.”
The Treasury chief said the “international financial institutions must be singularly focused” on securing economic and financial sustainability. “I’m not talking about climate change or carbon footprints.”
The Treasury chief’s keynote address comes amid a gathering in Washington of finance ministers and central bank governors from across the world for the spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank.
President Donald Trump has expressed skepticism over several international organizations and withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization earlier this year. Bessent made clear that he sees a need for the Washington-based lenders.
“The IMF and World Bank serve critical roles in the international system. And the Trump administration is eager to work with them — so long as they can stay true to their missions,” Bessent said.
For the fund, “we must make the IMF the IMF again,” he said. The former hedge-fund manager described the fund’s original mission as including the discouraging of “harmful policies like competitive exchange-rate depreciation” and facilitating “the balanced growth of international trade.”
The IMF should refocus on addressing balance-of-payments problems and make its lending temporary, he said. It should hold countries accountable for implementing reforms “and sometimes the IMF needs to say ‘No,'” Bessent said.
As for the World Bank, Bessent said the lender should “use its resources as efficiently and effectively as possible” and set “firm graduation timelines” for countries that had moved up the development ladder. “Treating China — the second-largest economy in the world — as a ‘developing country’ is absurd,” he said.
Ukraine aid
Bessent also referred in his remarks to coming development needs for war-ravaged Ukraine and signaled that those countries who had backed Russia in President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of its neighbor shouldn’t benefit down the line.
“I wish to send a strong message about procurement policies as regards Ukraine: No one who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be eligible for funds earmarked for Ukraine’s reconstruction,” Bessent said.
The head of the IIF, Timothy Adams — a former senior Treasury official — highlighted Bessent’s comment that “America First does not mean America alone,” saying that it produced a “collective sigh of relief” in light of concerns about a retreat from international engagement.
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva earlier this month used similar language as Bessent in describing the need to address “economic imbalances” globally. Addressing the impact of Trump’s tariffs, she referred to them as a “reboot” that created an opportunity to create “a better balanced, more resilient” world economy.