Global economic leaders are gathering in Washington this week for the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. They are arriving in a United States that is vastly different from the one they visited during the same forum last fall.
Recent debates over industrial policy and whether the world economy could achieve a soft landing have been replaced by anxiety over President Trump’s trade war, revived inflation fears and new worries about the prospect of a global recession. The multilateral institutions that are hosting the meetings and that receive funding from the United States are also under increasing pressure to prove their relevance to the Trump administration while avoiding confrontations that could compel Mr. Trump to withdraw from them entirely.
“The post-World War II rules-based system of global governance, which the United States played a key role in fashioning, is crumbling before our eyes,” said Eswar Prasad, a former China director of the I.M.F.
“The Trump administration has left little doubt about its distaste for practically every multilateral institution, including the I.M.F. and the World Bank, because it views these institutions’ recommendations and policies as not always perfectly aligned with narrowly defined American interests,” Mr. Prasad said.
Mr. Trump has ratcheted up tariffs to their highest levels in more than a century, creating widespread global economic uncertainty and most likely disrupting supply chains. At the same time, a sharp pullback in U.S. foreign aid is putting sudden pressure on poor countries that have for decades relied on American support to provide food and medicines for the world’s most vulnerable populations.
Mr. Trump has said little publicly about the I.M.F. or the World Bank since taking office in January. But officials at both institutions have been watching warily as the president upends the global trading system, rapidly overhauls the federal government and cracks down on foreign nationals working and studying in the United States.