What We’re Watching at the 2025 Spring Meetings

This week’s IMF–World Bank Spring Meetings will be one of the more unsettled in recent memory, with an escalating trade war, a shaky global outlook, shrinking aid budgets, and a US administration resetting its global posture.

Read a few reactions from CGD's expert on what they're paying particular attention to next week.

CGD is also hosting 10 events around the Spring Meetings, with discussions on everything from industrial policies or the future of concessional funds to conversations with finance ministers, central bank governors, and multilateral development bank heads—sign up now.

How the US approaches the World Bank, and how the World Bank approaches the tariffs

I am looking ahead to the Spring Meetings with some trepidation. I worry they could become quite fractious, especially if tariff-related tensions spill into public view, and I worry about further signs of strain in the multilateral system.

Assuming US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issues a formal statement at the meetings (as all previous Treasury Secretaries have done), it will be the first time a senior official from this Trump administration has weighed in publicly on the World Bank and the IMF. My hope is that Bessent delivers a positive message and will not simply double down on anti-climate and anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion sentiments. Endorsing a broader energy strategy that includes small nuclear and geothermal options would be one way to do this.

Another looming question is where the US Treasury is going to land on IDA, the World Bank’s concessional lending arm. Replenishment negotiations concluded last December, when President Biden was still in office. The US was the top donor: the Biden administration pledged $4 billion over three years—or 17 percent of total pledges—for the next IDA cycle, which begins in July 2025. It falls to the Trump administration to honor that pledge, and some downward revision is inevitable. The question is: how much?

The meeting dynamics will also be revelatory, especially around US tariff policies. World Bank President Ajay Banga is in a bind—he was able to pivot nimbly from climate and the “livable planet” agenda, which fulfilled a major Biden administration ask, to jobs, efficiency, and private sector, no doubt calculating that these themes were unlikely to rile President Trump. But Banga owes it to his stakeholders to highlight the breadth and depth of the risks posed by the US tariffs, especially to the poorest countries, and acknowledge that they could badly undercut his jobs and private sector agenda. But in his first public remarks on the issue, Banga averted any direct criticism of the US, noting instead that “Many developing economies still maintain higher tariffs than advanced economies, on the average, several percentage points higher on key imports," while encouraging greater integration and liberalization in these markets. Banga’s choice to pull his punches rather than provoke his largest shareholder will test others’ willingness to indulge him in a communications strategy that is pandering to the White House at the expense of the World Bank’s credibility.

– Karen Mathiasen

How low a profile for the IMF?

The IMF will likely try to maintain a low profile during the meetings as it awaits the Trump administration’s review of US participation in multilateral organizations. However, it will be difficult for the institution to avoid scrutiny, particularly with the release of its semi-annual World Economic Outlook—its first public assessment of the economic disruption caused by recent US policies, especially tariffs and aid cuts. I’ll be watching to see if the IMF adopts a combative or conciliatory tone.

Several other issues are on the agenda, including a pending quota increase, the financing of IMF concessional lending facilities, a rethinking of debt relief, and whether the IMF’s expanding areas of work (e.g., climate, pandemics, and gender) need to be pared back to a core mandate. Yet meaningful progress on any of these fronts is unlikely without clarity on the position of its largest shareholder. So far, the US representative on the IMF board has abstained from voting on many key decisions.

– Mark Plant

The repercussions of US tariffs and an endangered dollar on global financial markets

Discussions during the Spring Meetings will be dominated by the new shock to the global economy: the imposition of US tariffs on a broad set of trading partners, especially China,—and China’s retaliatory measures. In my view, two interrelated topics will attract special attention: the global economic outlook amid what appears to be the fastest-escalating trade war in history, and the risks of economic and financial fragmentation, including a potential weakening of the dollar’s exorbitant privilege. Both topics have profound repercussions for emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs)

First, deep uncertainties regarding tariffs and the overall evolution of US policymaking have eroded consumers and business confidence. As a result, prospects for the global economy appear increasingly bleak. Forecasts of US stagflation and a drastic slowdown in China are becoming more common. The anticipated decline in global growth and trade suggests that growth projections for EMDEs may continue to be downgraded.

Second, current trade tensions risk spilling over into deeper financial concerns—particularly if they trigger a significant and sustained decline in global demand for US dollars as a safe asset. The recent increase in the 30-year US Treasury bond yield, alongside dollar depreciation following the tariff announcements, suggests that the dollar may not have served its traditional safe-haven role during this episode. In a world of fiat currencies, it is ultimately economic output and institutional quality that underpin the dollar’s status. An erosion in confidence in the consistency and strength of US policies could undermine trust in the dollar as the preferred refuge during periods of financial turbulence. While I don’t expect firm conclusions to emerge from the Spring Meetings, I do wonder whether recent developments will catalyze a more serious examination of the tradeoffs involved in moving toward a multipolar currency system—an evolution that, albeit gradually, is already underway.

– Liliana Rojas-Suarez

Keeping gender on the agenda at the Spring Meetings

Will the theme of “Jobs – The Path to Prosperity” at the Spring Meetings and broader macroeconomic discussions meaningfully address aspects of (in)equality and inclusion? I will be watching to assess whether institutional priorities during a time of global economic instability and foreign aid cutbacks will extend beyond topline numbers to include rigorous discussions of distributional consequences, particularly for women and girls. I expect to hear some mention of women and youth but hope that these are not just cursory.

Ideally, discussions on development strategies, macroeconomic policies, and processes of structural transformation will include recommendations that aim to truly support inclusive development for all. To promote women’s economic empowerment, the jobs and growth agendas should emphasize the importance of care services, such as childcare and long-term care, and both private and public sector job creation. This approach would amplify the cross-sectoral impact and effective financing model of the World Bank’s Invest in Childcare initiative while reinforcing institutional commitments—including the IMF's work on the macrocriticality of gender gaps and the implementation of the World Bank's gender strategy.

– Mary Borrowman

Shifting ground under the international institutions

At this year’s Spring Meetings, nothing can be taken for granted. We’re in a period that is testing the proposition that the financial part of the multilateral architecture will remain active and impactful while its two largest actors are preoccupied with internal problems and locked in highly costly trade and other disputes.

The world will be looking to the US to clarify its stance regarding MDBs generally, not just the World Bank. This could go in two different directions. Having slashed bilateral aid, the US might take the view that contributions to MDBs also do not serve US interests. Or the US may instead decide that these institutions are highly financially efficient from the burden-sharing perspective that is so important to the Trump administration. Remember that a cumulative $3.7 billion in US paid-in capital to the World Bank has, combined with capital contributions from other shareholders, supported more than $800 billion in World Bank lending over time.

Similarly, at the meeting of G20 finance ministers that will be held alongside the Spring Meetings, the US has the opportunity to signal that it wants to engage constructively with G20 partners, after having skipped the meetings in South Africa. Or it may downplay the importance of the G20 given the likely criticism it will face from other G20 governments.

Importantly, we face that very real risk that the unfinished business of MDB reform, including ramping up the MDB role in addressing climate change, and strengthening the sovereign debt architecture will fall by the wayside as the G20 refocuses on trade disputes and the looming threats to the global economic outlook. The fact that these basic questions are in play shows just how far the ground has shifted since the annual meetings last year. I’ll be watching closely to see if the MDB reform agenda can survive in this unpredictable landscape.

– Nancy Lee