By David Lawder and Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The International Monetary Fund will stay “laser focused” on preventing balance of payments crises and incorporate the Trump administration’s concerns into its policies but will keep supporting countries affected by climate change, Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Thursday.
Georgieva told a news conference during IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings that the directives from U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent would be discussed with representatives of the Fund’s 190 members.
She also said she welcomed Bessent’s expression of U.S. support for the multilateral crisis lender.
Bessent on Wednesday called for the IMF and the World Bank to refocus on their core missions of macroeconomic stability and development, saying they had strayed too far into issues such as climate change, gender and inclusion that have reduced their effectiveness.
Bessent’s prescriptions were in line with the Trump administration’s efforts to reverse the Biden administration’s policies on climate and gender issues and also included a call for a broadening of the World Bank’s energy lending to fossil fuels and nuclear power.
The Treasury chief, who controls the dominant U.S. shareholding in both institutions, also said that Georgieva and World Bank President Ajay Banga needed to earn the Trump administration’s trust by implementing “back to basics” policies.
Georgieva said that in some cases, climate change impacts macroeconomic policy.
“People think that we have climate experts. We don’t. That’s not our job,” she said of the IMF. “Our job is to say, ‘Okay, if you are Dominica and a hurricane can wipe out the equivalent of 200% of your GDP, what are reasonable policies put in place?'”
Asked whether the IMF would now rethink its Resilience and Sustainability Trust financing facility launched in 2022 that helps countries deal with climate change, pandemics and other chronic challenges, Georgieva said this lending was a “really small” portion of the IMF’s total financing.
The IMF also is a membership organization, and its members ultimately will decide its policies, she added.
She said that she agreed with Bessent’s call for the two Bretton Woods institutions to be cost-efficient, saying that in real, inflation-adjusted terms, the IMF’s budget had not changed in 20 years, adding: “I really like to run a tight ship.”
(Reporting by David Lawder and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Andrea Ricci)
