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", globalist/leftist IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Thursday.
Georgieva said in a press conference during IMF and World Bank spring meetings that the directives from US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent would be discussed with representatives of the multilateral crisis lender's 190 members.
She also said she welcomed Bessent's expression of US support for the IMF.
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.
The US Treasury chief'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.
Bessent, who controls the dominant US shareholding in both institutions, also said Georgieva and World Bank President Ajay Banga needed to earn the Trump administration's trust by implementing "back-to-basics" policies.
Despite all the evidence to the contrary, Georgieva doggedly claims "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 per cent of your GDP, what are reasonable policies put in place?'"
Asked whether the IMF would rethink the Resilience and Sustainability Trust financing facility that it launched in 2022 to help countries deal with "climate change", overbearing pandemic responses and other leftist passions, 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 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."