‘America First does not mean America alone,’ the Treasury secretary said in prepared remarks.
The United States will support changes to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to secure economic and financial sustainability, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on April 23.
Bessent laid out his vision for the twin institutions and America’s involvement, pledging to bolster its leadership role as it pursues reforms to “restore equilibrium to the global financial system.”
“America First does not mean America alone,” the Treasury chief said in prepared remarks at an April 23 event hosted by the Institute of International Finance.
“We must enact key reforms to ensure the Bretton Woods institutions are serving their stakeholders, not the other way around.”
He stated that while the IMF and World Bank possess “enduring value,” they have engaged in “mission creep” that has “knocked these institutions off course.”
“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.
“Today’s IMF has been whistling past the graveyard.”
In recent years, rather than concentrate on worldwide monetary cooperation and financial stability, the IMF has devoted more time and resources to sprawling subjects, such as climate, gender, and social issues.
“These issues are not the IMF’s mission,” Bessent said. “The IMF’s focus in these areas is crowding out its work on critical macroeconomic issues. … We must make the IMF the IMF again.”
A chorus of U.S. officials has lamented these international organizations’ policies, prompting the administration to extensively review U.S. participation in all international intergovernmental organizations and foreign assistance programs.
Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, there have been growing concerns that the president would withdraw the United States from the IMF, which would transform the share of voting rights among remaining members.
The United States currently enjoys a 16 percent share of voting rights, followed by Japan (6 percent), China (6 percent), and Germany (5 percent).
Others, including Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey, say that a U.S. withdrawal would result in a “fragmentation of the world economy.”
“A big part of that is that we have support and engagement in the multilateral institutions, institutions like the IMF, the World Bank, that support the operation of the world economy. That’s really important,” Bailey said in a February interview with the BBC.
The IMF has forecast slower U.S. and global economic growth. In its latest World Economic Outlook report, the Washington-based institution projected that global growth will ease to 2.8 percent in 2025, down from 3.3 percent in 2024. U.S. economic growth is expected to slow to 1.8 percent this year from 2.8 percent in 2024.
Economists have attributed the predicted slowdown to Trump’s sweeping tariff agenda.
“The swift escalation of trade tensions and extremely high levels of policy uncertainty are expected to have a significant impact on global economic activity,” the report stated.
By Andrew Moran
