IMF Drops Pledge To “Resist All Forms Of Protectionism”

Jon Alternative Media, Blogosphere, Ecology, Economy, Geopolitics, Government

One month after a startling reversion by the G-20 finance ministers and central bankers, who during their latest meeting in Baden-Baden dropped a decade-long tradition of rejecting protectionism and endorsing free trade, pressured by Trump’s delegate Steven Mnuchin, the IMF has done the same, and according to a communique from the IMF’s steering committee released on Saturday in Washington echoed the G-20 reversal, and said that officials ‘are working to strengthen the contribution of trade to our economies” while omitting a call from its last statement in October to ‘resist all forms of protectionism.”
The International Monetary and Financial Committee – which is the IMF’s top advisory panel, composed of 24 ministers and central bankers from nations including the U. S., China, Germany, Japan and France – released the statement during the spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank. Since joint statements at gatherings such as the G-20 and the IMF require assent from members, the change in the U. S. position on trade from the Obama administration is forcng modifications in language that was previously uncontroversial.
While the trade language was drastically changed, some positions remained the same: the IMFC statement reiterated pledges from October to ‘refrain from competitive devaluations’ of currencies and to avoid targeting ‘our exchange rates for competitive purposes.’
There were other changes: in addition to the trade stance, the latest communique omits language from October that welcomed ‘the entry into force of the Paris Agreement on climate change.’ Trump is contemplating whether to make good on his campaign promise to withdraw from the deal, as Bloomberg notes.

The shift in the trade “plege” was due to the Trump administration’s persistent threats to raise tariffs if US trading partners don’t agree to renegotiate trade agreements and create fairer conditions for U. S. goods; in the past week Trump fired the first shot in what may be upcoming trade wars when he signed an executive order looking into curbing steel imports under the guise of “national security” concerns.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Apr 22, 2017.