‘America First’ on display at IMF meeting

US rejects capital boost to fight poverty

The growing split between the United States and the rest of the world spilled into the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington this week.

The US administration showed a diminished view of the Bretton Woods institutions that shaped a US-led order after World War II, rejecting efforts to expand their activities, and defending its attack on free trade pacts as part of President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda.

And at the same time, the US continued to stymie China’s ambitions to elevate its global role via an expanded stake in both the IMF and World Bank.

The Trump administration spelled out its view by rejecting a capital increase that the World Bank wants to expand its global anti-poverty mission.

“More capital is not the solution when existing capital is not allocated effectively,” treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement Friday, one day after Bank president Jim Yong Kim said he believed the Trump administration was now supportive of the move.

There was also no movement on the IMF’s longplanned boost in its lending resources that would come with a shakeup of its shareholder quotas. Last year, the Republicancontrolled Congress effectively vetoed the move, and the Trump administration has not supported bringing it back to life.

Instead, Mr Mnuchin took aim at the IMF and World Bank bureaucracies.