IMF can cooperate with Trump: Lagarde

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde believes the IMF can work successfully with the Trump administration to improve the global trading system, but adds that open trade must be preserved as a growth engine.

Lagarde told a news conference on Thursday at the opening of the IMF and World Bank spring meetings in Washington that the IMF saw the need to reduce subsidies and other trade distortions that limit competition, but also said "protectionist measures" needed to be avoided.
"From the various contacts that I've had with the administration so far, I have every reason to believe that we will make progress, that we will cooperate all together in order to support and indeed improve the system as we have it," Lagarde said.
Earlier World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said the multilateral lender does not plan to change its stance on financing alternative energy projects and mitigating the effects of climate change.
Asked about the Trump administration's skepticism about climate change at a news conference, Kim said the World Bank would continue to work with governments and the private sector to boost financing for alternative energy, especially in China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan and Vietnam.
"The science of climate change didn't change with any particular election, and I don't see that it will," Kim said. "We have to be an evidence-based organisation."