Fatima Hussein and Chris Megalian
WASHINGTON (AP) – Treasury Secretary Scott Bescent levelled harsh criticism of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on Wednesday despite attempting to reassure nervous investors that the US would maintain its global leadership role.
“America doesn’t mean only America,” he said in a speech to the International Financial Research Institute, where he also pledged to support the core mission of multilateral banks. “On the contrary, it is a call for deeper cooperation and mutual respect between trading partners.”
Bessent said the IMF and the World Bank were “a shortage,” but stopped calling for the US to withdraw from the institution as some conservatives had advocated in the Project 2025 proposal created by the Heritage Foundation.
He said the agency “plays an important role in the international system, and the Trump administration wants to work with them.
This was the latest example of how President Donald Trump was trying to calm economic turmoil by Bescent, a former hedge fund manager who closely monitors financial markets, tried to calm economic turmoil as he was about to resail international trade through aggressive tariffs.
After Bescent’s remarks, reporters asked him about an article in the Wall Street Journal that said it could cut the enormous US tariffs that the Republican president had collected from China in half.
Bescent said: “We’d be surprised if that debate took place,” he said he hopes that the trade conflict between Washington and Beijing “needs to escalate.”
Trump said Tuesday that 145% tariffs on China could “fall significantly.” And on Wednesday he told reporters, “Everyone wants to be part of what we’re doing,” and “everyone will be happy.”
Later that day, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said the Fox News Channel was “the US reporting.” “There will be no unilateral decrease in tariffs on China,” he said. “The President has made it clear that China needs to do business with the United States, and we are optimistic.”
Still, Bescent’s speech in Washington represents a broader perception of the IMF and the World Bank, which provide loans and other financial support around the world.
He said the Trump administration would “use US leadership and influence in these agencies and push them to achieve their important orders.”
Some of Bescent’s criticisms reflect the Trump administration’s efforts to eradicate progressive ideology from federal agencies. Bescent said the IMF is “stricken by mission creep” and “dedicated to disproportionate time and resources to tackle climate change, gender and social issues.”
He said there is a similar problem with the World Bank, saying, “We should no longer expect a check of vapid, buzzword-centric marketing blanks with a half-hearted commitment to reform.”
Despite criticism, Bescent’s support for the IMF and the World Bank came as a relief for development bankers and analysts who were partly hoping for an announcement of the US withdrawal from the organization.
Last October, former international affairs secretary Jay Chambeau hinted at the Project 2025 proposal that the US would withdraw from the IMF and the World Bank if Donald Trump wins the 2024 general election. At the time, Chambeau said that without US leadership, “we would have less influence and weaken these institutions. We can’t afford that.”
Instead, Bescent conveyed the message of deepening our involvement with the agency. But one of the problems is that China is still being treated like a developing country, giving it a more advantageous treatment from global institutions. As China’s second largest economy in the world, he said, “it’s an adult economy.”
Despite growing friction between Beijing and Washington, Bescent said “there is a big opportunity here.”
Bessent wants the US to boost manufacturing while China is increasing consumption, ensuring that its economy does not rely on floods around the world for its cheap exports. “If they want to rebalance, let’s do it together,” he said. “This is an incredible opportunity.”
“Pressure is not the right way to deal with China and simply won’t work,” Beijing said Wednesday.
Associated Press reporters Didi Tang and Michelle Price contributed to this report.
Original issue: April 23, 2025, 1:55pm
